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Texas can take pride in its pro teams
Michael David Smith
Football is to Texas like gambling is to Vegas, rain is to Seattle and stuffing ballot boxes is to Chicago. From the Junction Boys to the Tyler Rose to Friday Night Lights, football heroes are as central to the state as Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston.
But it's been a long time since the state of Texas had two good pro football teams. In the Houston Texans' five-year history, they've always looked like the expansion team they are, and the Dallas Cowboys haven't won a playoff game in more than a decade. The NFL has more passionate fans when it has two good teams in the state of Texas, but that hasn't been the case since 1993, when the Houston Oilers went 12-4 and the Cowboys won the Super Bowl.
But with the Cowboys and the Houston Texans both off to 2-0 starts, this could be the year that a double dose of winning football comes back to Texas. That would be good for the NFL.
The Matt Schaub era is off to a 2-0 start in Houston...
The Cowboys and Texans are both coached by men who were born and raised — and immersed in the game of football — in Texas. Cowboys coach Wade Phillips is a good old boy who was a three-year starting linebacker at the University of Houston and then a coach both there and at Orange (TX) High School. His first pro coaching job was as an assistant to his father, Bum Phillips, with the Houston Oilers.
Texans coach Gary Kubiak was one of the best high school athletes in the state's history as a quarterback at St. Pius High School. He then played four years at quarterback for Texas A&M, and after his pro career as John Elway's caddie ended, his first two years in coaching were with the Aggies. Phillips and Kubiak are tailor made for bringing out the passions of Texas football fans.
During the years after the Oilers left but before the Texans arrived, a lot of people outside Texas just assumed that the Cowboys united the state's football fans. But while public-opinion surveys have shown that the Cowboys are the most popular team in the NFL — they're called America's Team for a reason — millions of Texans want an alternative to the Cowboys.
"Both Houston and Dallas need winning football teams," said Stephanie Stradley, who blogs about the Texans and was named the team's 2006 Ultimate Fan. "To expect Houston fans to be content with rooting for a Dallas team is like expecting Philadelphia fans to be happy to accept the Steelers as their sole NFL rooting interest."
...and so is the Wade Phillips era in Dallas.
That's why it's nice to see both teams playing well. When the Oilers moved to Tennessee, a lot of football fans in Texas were left without a favorite team. The Oilers left town not because Houston wouldn't support an NFL team but because Oilers owner Bud Adams liked the lucrative stadium deal the people of Nashville were willing to give him. The fans of Houston are supporting the Texans, and owner Bob McNair is making big money, even though the team has never been better than 7-9.
For the first few years after the Oilers moved to Tennessee, the NFL didn't seem to realize just how passionate a fan base it was failing to reach without a team in America's fourth-biggest city. Even when the league announced that it would add another team and that Houston was one of the cities in contention, most people thought the NFL would ultimately reward the 32nd team to Los Angeles and give California its fourth team while Texas was stuck with one.
But Houston showed the NFL's 31 existing owners that it loved football in a way Los Angeles doesn't, and the league made the smart choice. As passionate as the fans in Houston are, though, last year's NFL draft turned off a lot of them. When the Texans chose defensive end Mario Williams with the first pick, the national media focused on the surprising decision to pass over Heisman Trophy-winning running back Reggie Bush. But for local fans, the real crime was taking Williams over Vince Young, the Houston native who had just led Texas to the national championship.
"There are a lot of fans just like me who will never, ever root for that franchise because they passed on Vince Young," said Peter Bean, who runs the Texas Longhorns Web site BurntOrangeNation.com.
From a public relations standpoint, last year's draft dug the Texans into a deep hole. But winning has a funny way of changing fans' attitudes. And when the teams in Houston and Dallas are both winning, the NFL has two passionate fan bases to help carry the league.
article
--call me crazy, but I don't think the Texans are really helping carry the league.
Football is to Texas like gambling is to Vegas, rain is to Seattle and stuffing ballot boxes is to Chicago. From the Junction Boys to the Tyler Rose to Friday Night Lights, football heroes are as central to the state as Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston.
But it's been a long time since the state of Texas had two good pro football teams. In the Houston Texans' five-year history, they've always looked like the expansion team they are, and the Dallas Cowboys haven't won a playoff game in more than a decade. The NFL has more passionate fans when it has two good teams in the state of Texas, but that hasn't been the case since 1993, when the Houston Oilers went 12-4 and the Cowboys won the Super Bowl.
But with the Cowboys and the Houston Texans both off to 2-0 starts, this could be the year that a double dose of winning football comes back to Texas. That would be good for the NFL.
The Cowboys and Texans are both coached by men who were born and raised — and immersed in the game of football — in Texas. Cowboys coach Wade Phillips is a good old boy who was a three-year starting linebacker at the University of Houston and then a coach both there and at Orange (TX) High School. His first pro coaching job was as an assistant to his father, Bum Phillips, with the Houston Oilers.
Texans coach Gary Kubiak was one of the best high school athletes in the state's history as a quarterback at St. Pius High School. He then played four years at quarterback for Texas A&M, and after his pro career as John Elway's caddie ended, his first two years in coaching were with the Aggies. Phillips and Kubiak are tailor made for bringing out the passions of Texas football fans.
During the years after the Oilers left but before the Texans arrived, a lot of people outside Texas just assumed that the Cowboys united the state's football fans. But while public-opinion surveys have shown that the Cowboys are the most popular team in the NFL — they're called America's Team for a reason — millions of Texans want an alternative to the Cowboys.
"Both Houston and Dallas need winning football teams," said Stephanie Stradley, who blogs about the Texans and was named the team's 2006 Ultimate Fan. "To expect Houston fans to be content with rooting for a Dallas team is like expecting Philadelphia fans to be happy to accept the Steelers as their sole NFL rooting interest."
That's why it's nice to see both teams playing well. When the Oilers moved to Tennessee, a lot of football fans in Texas were left without a favorite team. The Oilers left town not because Houston wouldn't support an NFL team but because Oilers owner Bud Adams liked the lucrative stadium deal the people of Nashville were willing to give him. The fans of Houston are supporting the Texans, and owner Bob McNair is making big money, even though the team has never been better than 7-9.
For the first few years after the Oilers moved to Tennessee, the NFL didn't seem to realize just how passionate a fan base it was failing to reach without a team in America's fourth-biggest city. Even when the league announced that it would add another team and that Houston was one of the cities in contention, most people thought the NFL would ultimately reward the 32nd team to Los Angeles and give California its fourth team while Texas was stuck with one.
But Houston showed the NFL's 31 existing owners that it loved football in a way Los Angeles doesn't, and the league made the smart choice. As passionate as the fans in Houston are, though, last year's NFL draft turned off a lot of them. When the Texans chose defensive end Mario Williams with the first pick, the national media focused on the surprising decision to pass over Heisman Trophy-winning running back Reggie Bush. But for local fans, the real crime was taking Williams over Vince Young, the Houston native who had just led Texas to the national championship.
"There are a lot of fans just like me who will never, ever root for that franchise because they passed on Vince Young," said Peter Bean, who runs the Texas Longhorns Web site BurntOrangeNation.com.
From a public relations standpoint, last year's draft dug the Texans into a deep hole. But winning has a funny way of changing fans' attitudes. And when the teams in Houston and Dallas are both winning, the NFL has two passionate fan bases to help carry the league.
article
--call me crazy, but I don't think the Texans are really helping carry the league.
