Some people are fans of the Houston Texans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Houston Texans. This 2013 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the 2013 NFL previews so far right here.


Your team: Houston Texans

Your 2012 record: 12-4. Only four of those victories came against teams with winning records. When you win the AFC South, you amass the majority of your wins in the bowels of CBS's Sunday afternoon schedule, with Bill Macatee on play-by-play and some sort of talking walrus doing the color commentary. Whenever the Texans were let out of that broadcasting spiderhole to play a REAL team (Packers, Patriots) last season, they were obliterated.


Your coach: Gary Kubiak, who always makes sure to tip his hairdresser a little something extra any time she gives him the "Full Saban." Now flip up that microphone so you can do some real face-to-face yellin', Coach!

It's the modern-day coaching equivalent of putting your sunglasses on top of your head. YOU MUST RESPECT THE AUTHORITY OF MY HEADSET.

Your quarterback: Angry kabob vendor Matt Schaub, who is quarterbacking's version of a pitcher who "gives you innings." You have already seen the best of Matt Schaub. He will get no better. You know how Joe Flacco is a boring quarterback who magically improves in the postseason? Matt Schaub is just like that, minus the magic part.


Your one fantasy player everyone will hate: Ben Tate, whom you will draft praying that either A) Arian Foster gets hurt or B) Tate randomly gets all the goal-line carries because Kubiak is the kind of coach who will let one running back consume 80 yards of a drive before inexplicably handing over the scoring privileges to some other prick at jusssst the last second. But neither of those things will happen for Ben Tate. He'll score two touchdowns in a game, then you'll start him in your flex slot, and then he'll fumble eight times the next week and get benched. He's a dick.

Why your team sucks: It's another season with the same aging core of offensive talent (Schaub, Andre Johnson, Foster, Owen Daniels)—a group of players good enough to go 11-5, win the division, and bow out meekly in the playoffs to a team that actually knows what it's doing. You can watch the Texans all season long and think to yourself, Hey! They're kind of not shitty! THAT COULD BE A TEAM THAT GOES PLACES! You can talk yourself into thinking that they're ready to unseat a traditional AFC superpower. You can get really excited about that prospect! You can envision them dethroning the Patriots in your mind and it SEEMS so very plausible. And then the time comes for them to actually play and they fall behind 31-13 before you've even had a chance to open up a bag of chips. And you think to yourself, God, I'm so dumb! I should have known that they had no fucking prayer! But you didn't, because you're from Texas and you lack a proper education.


That's all right, though, because Texans fans aren't REAL fans. Come on, 30-year-old dude in a Foster jersey. You're not fooling anyone. I know you can't possibly love your team as much as someone who actually grew up with his team. I salute you for trying, for ACHING to replicate the kind of passion and devotion that can only be forged in the crucible of your childhood. But you know it's a futile effort. You ever make friends with someone when you're a grownup and you think that you've made a real connection and that you're gonna be buds for life and then you meet one of your new buddy's childhood friends and they have an effortless rapport and a treasury of shared memories between them that you can't possibly begin to match? That's what being a grownup Texans fan is like.

So don't bother trying to tell me you're "long-suffering" or "diehard" or any of that nonsense. Browns fans spit on you. You are actors. You are playing the ROLE of the diehard fan when you can't possibly ever be one. If the Texans had reclaimed the nickname Oilers, maybe it would have been a different story. Instead, they chose the dumbest, lamest nickname in all of team sports, which is why they deserve their counterfeit fanbase. Once Schaub and Foster and J.J. Watt are gone and the team sucks again (and it will), you'll flee Reliant Stadium within seconds, retiring back to your Houston sweatlodges to polish your guns and kick Katrina refugees in the shins.


Why your team doesn't suck: Hey, Ed Reed is here! Sure, his body is decomposing before our eyes, and he's probably cashing in on his last chance to get a decent free agent contract. But at least the Texans managed to buy themselves a little bit of fake championship gloss. HE'S LIKE A COACH OUT THERE ON THE FIELD!

The four worst Texans ever:

1. David Carr

2. David Carr's family

3. Loretta Devine

4. Steve Slaton. Remember that one year when Slaton was a first-round fantasy draft choice and then IMMEDIATELY lost his job? Steve Slaton is a BAG OF SHIT.


Emails from Texans fans:

Randy:

This team is quarterbacked by a guy who looks like the accountant that is always the first one out in the egg toss of their company's annual picnic.


Dan:

Despite the fact that he has sucked at coaching special teams for years, Joe Marciano remains the team's Special Teams Coordinator. This is the guy who gave up on Jacoby Jones and Trindon Holliday, only to see them immediately ascend to stardom as return specialists with their new teams. Marciano appears unfireable. He must have pictures of owner Bob McNair involved in some truly loathsome and illegal sex acts. Nothing else explains how he has kept his job since the franchise was born. He even got a game ball last season, when most rating services ranked the Texans STs last in the NFL. How much better would the Texans be without this field position albatross around their necks? We will probably not know until either he or McNair dies, because apparently no head coach has the authority to dump his sorry ass.


Chris:

Our team has to go and get embarrassed on every nationally-televised game just to reinforce the country's conclusion that the Texans always and forever will be the worst. We should be happy being a "pretty good" team. Pretty good is light-years from where we were four years ago, but then we have to get cocky and wear varsity letterman jackets and get metaphorically executed by Aaron Hernandez in front of the country.


Zach:

Matt Schaub is a glorified Trent Dilfer. If he wins a title I'll streak across midfield with my cock taped up to my belly button.


Michael:

The Texans suck because after 10 years of alternating between abysmal ineptitude and calculated irrelevance, the team finally got good enough to storm through 12 games of the regular season before successfully backing into the playoffs two years in a row. But thanks to a GM whose idea of cap management is "DURR! MATH IS FOR PENCIL-NECK LOSERS!" the Texans window has already closed! Windows should not close after 2 playoff wins in 12 years! But, when you release your starting OLB, FS, and FB and sign an ageing, bearded gimp with a legendary name - while your chief division opponent drafts a transcendent talent - your window is closed. So, to my dear GM Rick Smith - hire a capologist, or at least buy a calculator.


AR:

1. No one really cares about seeing/talking about the Texans. I am pretty sure that this post will have the least amount of page views in your whole “Why your team sucks” series, and can pretty much guarantee you will have the fewest amount of comments down below. We are just genuinely uninteresting, even to the avid NFL fan. We are Tapioca. 2. Schaub is only marginally better than Matt Cassel, and yet we are still considered a Super Bowl contender. That’s how much talent we are wasting away, while Schaub figures out how throw into triple coverage in the end zone. 3. This song is played after every touchdown. 4. We always bring up to Cowboy fans that we beat them 19-10 in our first ever game. Never mind that was 11 years ago, or that Dallas’ QB at the time was Quincy Carter. 5. JJ Watt is too good of a human being, and we will be punished for having him. We are all waiting for that moment he suffers a career ending heart attack while hugging sick children too hard. 6. Oh and how can we forget the Letterman Jackets.

Chris:

I wish I could fight Matt Schaub because I know I'd have time to take a shit while waiting for his first punch to land.


Wanna be part of the Deadspin NFL previews? It's simple. Just email me and give me ample evidence of why your team sucks: personal anecdotes, encounters with fans, etc. I'll throw any good material into the post and give you proper credit. Next team up: Indianapolis Colts.