Oh Wow! So Sad! I was only 12 years old at that time and just watched the games and went about doing school work. So I never really knew how much drama was involved with the team apart from the Buddy Ryan punch towards Kevin Gilbride back in those days. You can look at the Oilers dysfunctional situation in 1993 two fold. 1.) Buddy Ryan was a cancer and should have not never been hired. But his 4-6 defense was very effective and got him a super bowl victory with the Bears. 2.) Buddy Ryan was the right man to bring in for the defense. But our head coach at the time Jack Pardee was not the type of head coach that should have been at the helm leading that team and those personalities. I am inclined to choose the latter. I think that the Oilers needed a tough minded defensive coordinator but Jack Pardee let the inmates run the prison. The most telling quote was "that there was no team meeting held after two coaches got in a spat on the sidelines to apologize to each other." Two grown men fighting with each other and they couldn't even publicly bury the hatchet. That is flat out pathetic. I was thinking imagine if twitter/facebook/youtube and other social media outlets were available at the time. They would have been feasting on how much juicy gossip that was coming out of the Houston Oilers Locker room. Primarily from the freaking coaches good grief. Even Al Gore weighed in on baby gate. (I didn't even know a baby gate situation existed) Now I realize why there is so much vitriole spewed towards Bud Adams. I didn't realize he threatened to dismantle the team before the freaking season started! If there isn't enough pressure playing in the NFL and trying to win football games. What an idiot! And then got rid of all of our good players the following season including Warren Moon. No wonder the fans didn't want give his sorry butt a stadium. Overall I really appreciated watching the documentary even though it was tough! NFL Films did a great job as always. Hopefully my great granchildren can maybe see a Teddy Bridgewater/JJ Watt/Andre Johnson/Insert Any player name here documentary about their success as NFL football players and them becoming NFL champions playing for the Houston Texans one day. Something positive about our Houston Football team for a change. P.S. It was cool to see some Webster Slaughter touchdown highlights (he was my favorite receiver in the NFL even when he played for the Cleveland Browns before coming to the Oilers. He had some of the best jukes I have ever seen from a receiver plus swag)
Watched it last night and really enjoyed it. At the time it all went down, it was very depressing as a life-long Houston sports fan.....but now, enough time has passed that I can just laugh at it now (except for Alm, of course..). A few things I didn't remember about that season: Totally forgot Moon got benched early on and only came back in because of the injury to Cody. Mike Holovak...LOL....he seemed totally overwhelmed by all the drama that went on that year. I loved when someone asked him how they were going to handle the fight between Buddy and Kevin and he just smiled awkwardly and literally said nothing. I forgot about all the coaches shows. Jack had one, Buddy had one, and even Kevin had one. WTF?? It was good to see some of the interviews from today. Childress looks like he could still play. And Brad Hopkins did not look like a former offensive lineman. Guy is probably down to about 180 now. Great to hear from Ernest, Haywood and Dish again too. All 3 look great. Really enjoyed the show. I thought it was very well done. Like someone else said, I was glad the way they portrayed the Oilers leaving and didn't blame it on the fans like everyone did at the time.
Was interesting to note that 93 was the last year before the salary cap. I don't think it would have been possible today to keep a team with that much talent together for 7+ years like the Oilers did. Also interesting to note that there was absolutely ZERO foresight to preparing the team for the salary cap... just that Adams planned on breaking them up (probably would have done so regardless of how the 93 season ended up). So, the salary cap goes into effect, the team gets broken up, performance on the field starts to suffer, attendance plummets... all this coincides with Bud having the worst timing in the world to ask for a new stadium... and then the Oilers leave. Just an awful chain of events.... but a fitting end to a truly cursed team. (and PS - When John McClain is the face of Houston media, and the only person that ever gets interviewed for these type of things, it says more about the crappy state of the media than it does about pancakes)
Bud Adams was so stupid, the Devils currently stabbing him in the ass feel sorry for him. The sideline fight should have gotten Ryan fired on the spot, but Adams did nothing, just like he did nothing after the Buffalo debacle. He died never winning a SB. Karma.
Well, he did bring in Buddy after the Buffalo debacle. That was actually a pretty gutsy move. Problem was.....he didn't bother to tell his head coach. That was actually a pretty.....well...a typical Bud Adams move... How stupid was it to tell the team you were breaking them up if they didn't make the SB. Vintage Bud Adams.
I caught it last night, it was very good. I don't remember much about this stuff becuase I was seven at the time. My dad to this day couldn't care less about sports and my mom hadn't gotten me into football yet. By the time she did the Oilers were gone and we were Cowboys fans . Thank God for the Texans coming to town! I do however remember my uncles and other adults being pissed about Moon being benched for Cody Carlson. That was actually my first time being exposed to the notion of racism. Everyone, around me at least, were saying that he was benched because he was black. I believed it at the time because I was just a kid and had really no idea about what was really going on. And honestly, other than what I saw on this show last night, I still don't really know. And never really thought about it until now. Based off of what saw last night, I'm sure race had absolutely nothing to do with it. But this really got me thinking about how transcendent sports can be and how it can shape different opinions and in my case memories and experiences among communities. Crazy... Please note: More than anything else, I'm just commenting on memories from my childhood that haven't been brought up in over 20 years. Not at all looking to start a race debate.
Jack Pardee's role with the Oilers reminds me a lot of what Rick Smith is to the Texans. A guy the ownership has in its pocket, who isn't the main X's and O's guy, who may perceive to have more power than he has actually shown. Both situations have proven to be dysfunctional.
watching that defense turn it up as the season went along was so much fun to watch. but of course the carriage had to turn into a pumpkin once the playoffs began. I thought I would be disgusted by horrific memories if I watched this episode but quite the contrary. It was like looking back at a relationship and appreciating the experience. Only the cleveland can truly understand what it feels like for us houston football fans.
without the Oilers back-to-back epic playoff collapses, the Choke City moniker probably never gets bestowed upon the Rockets. So if nothing else we can thank the Oilers for their hand in our beloved websites namesake...
From his perspective, what could he really do? Buddy wouldn't listen to anybody but himself. Trying to sit him down in a meeting to talk things over, maybe forcing him to apologize, that was never going to work and would be just going through the motions. On a bad team, Buddy would've been suspended at least, perhaps even fired. But for a team with Super Bowl aspirations that's streaking into to playoffs, how are you going to discipline your defensive coordinator before your first playoff game? That's the look I saw on Holovak's face. Knowing that Buddy should be dealt with but also knowing that he can't be and being frustrated at now knowing how to handle the situation. But you know what? 5 months later the Rockets won their first NBA Championship. Thank God for that. You heard the guys on the documentary talk about "Choke City". I guess I don't remember that term pre-dating the Rockets but I guess it makes sense.
Not sure if this is all of it or not. Edit: Looks like it's missing the first 10 minutes or so. <IFRAME SRC="http://180upload.com/embed-jhqu7z5i5o4a-640x360.html" FRAMEBORDER=0 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 SCROLLING=NO WIDTH=640 HEIGHT=380></IFRAME>
Thank you! Just set it to record at 3 through my phone to watch tonight. I tried to rep you but I must spread rep around. :/
back-to-back-to-back epic playoff collapses - Denver in '91; Buffalo in '92; KC in '93. And i'll maintain until the day I die that the '91 and '93 collapses were worse than the Buffalo collapse. The '91 and '93 teams were much better teams.
Yep. Well, the game was in January '92 - but it was after the '91 regular season. Those who witnessed it... Richard Johnson......... That '91 team was exceptional.
