Some people are fans of the Houston Texans. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Houston Texans. This 2016 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here. And buy Drew’s new book here.



Your team: Houston Texans.


Your 2015 record: 9-7, including losing a game to a literally incontinent Matt Hasselbeck. The Texans won the AFC South thanks to Andrew Luck getting hurt and the rest of the division being an open sewer pit. But something is deeply, deeply wrong with the NFL when a team like this clinches a playoff spot after picking up 58-year-old Brandon Weeden at the bus station. You don’t want that to be one of the high points of your televised product. This team should have been quietly dispatched behind a maintenance facility before ever having a chance to tarnish the playoffs with their presence. They’re like a NBA Eastern Conference eighth seed: the playoffs don’t REALLY start until they’ve been kicked out.

As such, the Texans lost 30-0 in the Wild Card round to Kansas City. Do you how shitty you have to be to get crushed by Andy Reid in the playoffs? Even Andy Reid was stunned by how easy it was. He had a whole 10-minute drill he didn’t have to use. One-man CTE study Brian Hoyer threw four interceptions in that game. Hoyer is fortunate in the fact that he will be the one person who doesn’t remember sitting through that shitshow.


Your coach: This genius:


Keep in mind that Bill O’Brien had the chance to keep Wade Phillips around when he took over this team, but kicked him to the curb (for Romeo Crennel, no less), only to watch Wade and the man he replaced cruise to a Super Bowl win last year. EAT SHIT, BILL.

At some point, O’Brien and his butt chin will run out of second chances to make Houston look like something other than the most anemic offensive team in history. Especially now that…


Your quarterback: Yes, the Texans won the Brock Osweiler “derby,” cementing this offseason as the lamest offseason in NFL history. Couldn’t someone have at least taken a dump on Roger Goodell’s doorstep or something? Jesus.

Anyway, there is nothing to suggest that Osweiler deserved the $37 million in guarantees that the Texans paid, a contract they threw down just so that they can look like they care about addressing the quarterback position. Osweiler’s greatest achievement was beating the Pats at home in a game where Gronk nearly died and the refs handed out flags like free restaurant mints. His second greatest achievement is that he is tall, just like the quarterback the Texans cut in the middle of last season. Whoop dee damn doo.


After that Pats game, the Broncos spent the end of last season jerking off a dead bull trying to score more than 20 a game. Osweiler was then benched for a wet-armed Peyton Manning and had the nerve to pout about it when Manning—who is only one of the greatest quarterbacks in league history—kept the job all the way through to the Super Bowl. Hey Ostrich Boy, your QBR last season was lower than Johnny Manziel’s. You have no right to bitch. It says a lot that the Broncos were not only willing to part with a quarterback they drafted and groomed over a number of years to succeed Manning, but they also took pains to shade his ass on the way out the door:


This isn’t the most pro-management website on Earth, but even we can tell that the Broncos dumped Brock because he’s a stack of turds. Speaking of which…

Your defensive end: Christ.


I think we can all agree that the bloom is off the rose here. JJ Watt is 50 times more grating and self-serving than GLORY BOY players he supposedly out-rises and out-grinds every offseason: Beefing on Twitter with Florio AND Andy Dalton (why??), getting rehabilitative handjobs from Lindsey Vonn, using a photo of himself in a fireman’s outfit as his Twitter page banner art (go look for yourself), and Snapchatting his trips to the gym while the rest of the goddamn city is underwater:


Good job, JJ. You killed that horse. I hope you’re happy. By the way, Watt isn’t expected back until at least Week 3 of the regular season thanks to a bad back, a torn groin, and his penchant for doing box jumps WHILE having a bad back and a torn groin:


Idiot. Also, fuck his arm brace. Hate that arm brace. You’re not a cyborg, guy. The worst part is that these fans eat it up:


I bet they think he’s a troop. I bet they literally think JJ Watt is a secret member of Seal Team Six.

What’s new that sucks: Lamar Miller. Yes, the Texans splurged this offseason to rebuild their offense around Brock Osweiler and Lamar goddamn Miller, who couldn’t even break a thousand yards last year. They also reached for Will Fuller too high to complete the illusion of a high-powered offense, when they still don’t know how to pass block. This is the Texans’ plan: to recreate the glories of the 2014 Dolphins offense. This offense will be as shitty as it was last year, only more expensive.


Also, Arian Foster is gone now. Arian Foster is the Drake of football.

What has always sucked: Bob McNair. Bob McNair is the worst. While Jerry Jones is lighting Roman candles in his butt and Dan Snyder is suing the elderly, Bob McNair is lurking in the shadows being an equally rotten human and owner. He tried to fund an anti-gay PAC before getting caught and slinking back from the donation. He got Houston to build him a shiny new stadium and then skimped on decent turf. He named the Texans the Texans. He made his money selling to Enron.


Oh, but of course he’s a hero down in Houston, a humid deathtrap of a city whose main tourist attraction is a house decorated in beer cans. There are oil rigs with more charm. So of course this town would adore a loathsome billionaire and his delusional prick of a defensive end. At least when the St. Louis Cardinals are being sanctimonious pricks, they have the courtesy to win a few playoff games in the process.

Jadeveon is a bust.

What might not suck: Okay so DeAndre is a stud and I’m dying to see Braxton Miller out there. I swear this would be a lethal receiving corps if Big Ben were the QB and not Steve from Stranger Things.


Let’s remember some Texans:

Jabar Gaffney



Demarcus Faggins



Steve Slaton



Chester Pitts



Kailee Wong



Hear it from Texans fans!

Joe:

What can you say about this team that wasn’t already said at the Republican National Convention? The only thing more dogwhistle-y than being a J.J. Watt fan is a Blues Lives Matter Facebook update.


AJ:

The Texans are completely devoid of any personality or likability, much like the city they call home. Hopkins is kind of fun, but he is almost completely ignored by fans. Instead watch the local news and all you see are J.J. Watt’s shameless grabs for attention. I think Watt would wrestle an alligator if enough cameras were there. Hard Knocks proved that our most interesting player was a second year undrafted CB who didn’t make the team. The highlight of the season was when they resigned him after he was released off the Ravens practice squad. The other highlight was when the backup QB was released for being too hungover to show up for work. I would include more but that would mean that there was something interesting to write about the Texans, which there isn’t.


Robert:

1) JJ Watt is the closest thing you will get to Messiah in this crappy sports town. Which is why every Texan fan is just PRAYING that there is no secret coven of babies at his “Cabin” in the woods. 2) Bob McNair is an amazing owner, but has donated more money than the rest of the NFL combined to whatever dipshit politician will say the most “Murican” thing these days, or in other words whichever guy is the most likely to support clubbing baby seals. 3) The absolute worst thing...Texan fans are so full of self-hate that we don’t even know it. Every POS fan in this town at one point or another owned a Michael Irvin or Emmitt Smith jersey. The only exception are the little shit, squeaky voiced teens who scream racist things that you expect to hear on literally any Xbox Live conversation.


Grant:

The most our party cheered during the playoff game against the Chiefs was when a Whataburger commercial played on loop 18 times.


John:

1. Can we start with J.J. Watt? The guy’s a publicity whore who a) likes to shame other players for being publicity whores, b) gets angry at people who call him out for being a publicity whore, and c) who would likely be subject to Cam Newton-esque type treatment if he were black. But d) none of that matters because his new trainer; Lindsey Vonn, is massaging his groin. 2. Bill O’Brien is labeled time after time after time as some offensive genius who is also some magical QB-guru known for developing QBs. Someone name me a QB he has developed? No, Tom Brady doesn’t count. Did you see the clown car full of QBs he had last year? Remember on Hard Knocks how offended he got when people criticized Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett? But hey, at least he ran Case Keenum out of town and into the concussion trap that is the Rams. His main innovation last year was bringing in a guy cut by the Seahawks and using him to run the wildcat. 3. The team’s best offensive player last year was Shane Lechler, the punter. Lechler’s also probably the best QB in team history. 4. Offensive genius O’Brien had his ass handed to him twice by Andy Reid. ANDY REID! And both games were in Houston. 5. How do you quiet your home crowd? Put J.J. Watt and Vince Wilfork in as running backs at the goal line during a playoff game, and still not score a touchdown. 6. The reason the Texans made the playoffs last year was the defense. A defense built by Wade Phillips, who the Texans didn’t keep as defensive coordinator because Romeo Crennel needed another sideline to destroy. 7. The owner, Bob McNair, is a homophobe who helped fund campaign ads that helped to defeat Houston’s HERO equal rights legislation. You remember those ads, right? The ones that said it was now legal for men to dress as women so they could go into women’s restrooms and rape little girls. 8. They gave Brock Osweiller a four year $72 million contract. The guy who couldn’t beat out Peyton Manning for a job even though Manning could no longer throw the ball five yards. The guy the Broncos said, “No, go ahead, you take him. We’ll just go with Mark Sanchez.” 9. If Osweiller turns into Scott Mitchell or Matt Flynn, the idiots will flood Houston’s sports talk stations demanding the team sign Vince Young. 10. The new running back is Lamar Miller, who the Dolphins gave up on because he sucked. The one time he didn’t suck? That one game he played last season against the Texans.


Tommy:

I grew up in Iowa so apparently having one perennial .500 or barely above team in the Iowa Hawkeyes just wasn’t enough for me.


Faegen:

Matt Schaub, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer, and now Brock Osweiler. Why do we always settle for backups? is Rick Smith too stupid to get a draft a franchise QB?


Michael:

JJ Watt’s rehab from back surgery is going to consist of our suburban Fanbase soliciting likes and prayers for healing on Facebook in between posting Crooked Hillary memes. Houston is Cleveland without the evergreen headlines. Don’t believe me? Between the Oilers and Texans, there have been zero Super Bowl appearances by a Houston football team; Our baseball team was swept in its only World Series and, just last year, allowed the Royals to come back in the 8th inning at home to send the series back to Kansas City; we convinced ourselves that Dwight Howard wasn’t a psychologically-delusional AAU-bred pre-diabetic; people seriously protested “the influx of Islam” outside of the downtown Islamic Da’wah Center owned by Hakeem Olajuwon, the only athlete to not spectacularly disappoint this city. A ragtag theater group in New York once made an opera based on the life of Bum Phillips. Nobody in Houston would bring the production to town until Dan Pastorini’s charity brought it to town for one-night-only production starting at $500 per ticket. The ghost of Bud Adams is upset that he didn’t think of that scam. Sage Rosenfels’ “Rosencopter” fumble was the most visible commitment to wind-based energy in the history of Texas.


Tim:

We just extended our GM who has 2 playoff wins in 10 years for 4 more years.

Taylor:

Our star player is shredding muscles from the bone just to try and get SOMETHING going for a team that can’t score with talent like DeAndre Hopkins. I wish this team would have a scandal. Some high-level, cheating/dog-fighting/drug abuse combo that would ruin the “good guys” image and force them to draft players who will threaten your family and spit on the floor during post-game press conferences. Then at least I’d believe they wanted their team to WIN. Oh crap, did I just wish we were the Cowboys?

Craig:

Our answer for replacing the starting lousy backup quarterback was to pay a great deal of money for a starting lousy backup quarterback. McNair loves backup quarterbacks ALMOST as much as he hates anti-discrimination ordinances.


SB:

Team Name Status, One Year Later: Still really fucking stupid.

Bryan:

When Peyton Manning left Indy he wanted to come to Houston, but Gary Kubiak vetoed it. Later, Gary Kubiak lost 14 games in a row and got fired a week after having a seizure on the field in the middle of a game. Then, Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl in Denver, with Gary Kubiak as his coach. There is no punchline here. I met a Giants fan in a bar the other night and when I told him I was a Texans fan all he said “Damn. The Astros look pretty good though” We could have drafted Khalil Mack but instead we drafted Clowney who is 80% dried spaghetti noodles and 20% dreadlocks.


Allen:

Last year we all watched the team on Hard Knocks decide which jobber would be our first string QB, only to watch our head coach reverse his HBO monologue after week 1. Rick Smith couldn’t manage a Piggly Wiggly but he stumbled into the playoffs to save his job, then outbid nobody for Peyton’s backup. And fuck David Carr, who has more Super Bowl rings than the Texans organization.


Z:

I live in Southern California and I was born after the Rams and Raiders left so as a kid who loved sports, I had to pick a team. And I picked this fucking team.


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