[ESPN] Casserly confirms Young out of the picture.

Ouch... good one.

 

If he can logon at all. Verbal assaults on mods are normally good for free tickets to banville/timeouts...

 

I'm sorry kids...maybe I am a Longhorn hata....but anyone who thinks VY is gonna be able to run for 25 yards like he would against Rice anytime he sees a crease is delusional.

Reggie is not gonna dominate the NFL as a kick returner...and he is gonna be covered and covered well any time he lines up in the slot...unless its some kind of gadget play. But he has a chance to be a solid performer when he lines up at tailback.

VY might be able to turn a lot of 8 yard losses into 5 yard gains..which is doubtless gonna help whatever bad team he ends up on...but I don't think his arm is gonna be able to make em pay the way he could against the Big 12.

I'm happy to wait and see...and I will happily eat crow from the Burnt Orange Crew if Vince turns out to be an All Pro..I just don't think he will.

 

Well said
The Texans are still EARNING fans

Rocket River

 

I don't get it. Couldn't I say the same thing about Bush:

 

Absolutely. They would have earned a lot of fans. How can you be a true fan of an expansion franchise that has done nothing but go in the dumper besides to have the hometown kid come home and play for them? What else is there to be a fan of at this point?

Most of us are fans to a certain level because of the name Houston attached to the franchise. But we won't be die hards until they start winning. But we could have been dead head groupies following the team's fortunes as we followed VY but that isn't going to happen. We'll have to settle for becoming die hards as RB and company start winning games and competing for playoff position. And a lot of us will still be following Vince's career. I, myself will have his games on my watch list, no matter who he is with. Can you imagine the synergy if a lot of us fans favorite player was playing for our hometown team and becomes the dominant player in the league over the next decade?

 

But, really, how is that any different from any other year or team in Houston. The Rockets didn't start selling out after Hakeem was drafted even though he was a bigger sensation in Houston than VY playing at UH for Phi Slamma Jamma. It was when they started winning that the Summit started to fill up.

The reality is that Houston is a town that draws fans based on wins and losses, not based on individual players. If the Texans start winning, Reliant will be packed and fans will be rabid, VY or no VY.

 

The reality is this is a football town first and foremost. The Rockets and Stros draw fans based on wins but the Oilers drew fans based on the fact that we bled blue. The fan base lived and died with them whether they were winners or losers. In the other 2 sports, you have a small group of die hard Rocket fans, that congregate here, and a small group of die hard Astro fans. Their die hard fan base pales in comparison to the die hard football fanbase that was here with the Oilers and is still here waiting for this team to be the team they can love again.

The football die hards are still burnt over by the Bud Adams incident. That's why they have such a tremendous love/hate relationship with the Tennessee franchise. We have to admit, love them or hate them, that we still look to see what Fisher, McNair, and Company have done since they left town. The die hards are dying to have a team to root for, to call their own again. They're trying to make the Texans that team but there is not a lot to relate to because they have played so poorly and they have been in the community but 4 years. There is no history with this franchise.

That's why a player like VY would go a looooooooooooooooooooooooong ways towards bringing back that feeling that this is our team and our guys. Look what Earl did for this franchise and he wasn't even as local as VY. But he was close enough. VY lives in the Bayou City man. He grew up here.

I'm confident the Texans will make history and revive the football community with RB and company. But, we are still going to be chewing holes in our socks though when the hometown favorite that we all watched grow up comes home and beats us to a pulp and feeling the same frustration of the previous franchise all over again, especially since we had the opportunity to have him on the team.

It's gonna get ugly, I'm telling you. In spite of all the great, sensational plays that RB makes where we are going crazy, in spite of all the Ws. When VY comes HOME and kicks our tails, it will be like losing to Dallas x 1000. It will be like losing to Buffalo after being up 62-0. It will be like a kick to the groin followed by a kick to the kidney followed by a vicious uppercut to the jaw without a mouthpiece.

You can even make the case that this is different from Hakeem to the extent that Hakeem only spent 4 years in this community prior to coming to the Rockets. He moved here from a foreign country. We got to know him over that 4 year span. He was not a native Houstonian. Whole different story with VY. As greatly as Hakeem was recognized and loved here, if VY plays here and succeeds, he will be on another level. The chances of him retiring here and spending a lifetime in this community, are pretty good. He would be ours. Hakeem is gone. Earl is back in Tyler. Yeah, they come to town once in a while. It would be a different level with VY. For him, Houston was the place before Houston was the place and he was us before he was anything.

 

The Oilers averaged about 46K from '83-'96. They averaged about 67K when they became the Titans. The Texans average over 70K. We sure do need more diehard fans. Just because you don't feel a connection with a team does not mean that there's not one with others.

 

Still...I have yet to see tears in the crowd after a loss. What I see is, "Aww shucks. That sucks. We lost."

That's just going through the motions. This whole city is just going through the motions playing NFL. Just like in Florida that city is just going through the motions and playing MLB...and they've won it all. I think it is more of 'expansion syndrome' than anything. But the difference is in Houston, Vince would've bypassed the newness and losing for a sh!tload of people. I am one of them.

 

All it takes is winning to get Houston fans to care. It's hard to get emotional after a loss when all you do is lose.

 

I dunno...

 

Heh !

I have seen the Langhi quote too often in Clutch Classics to say that I am never wrong !

Dare to be great is what I believe in.....and if both players are equally great, I would rather have the mismatch at QB...triple threat baby !

DD

 

I remember your almost comical obsession with Langhi and Boki, but for some reason I keep on thinking you loved a third undersized white power forward. Was there?

 

They were small forwards, but the other guy I thought would be great and never quite panned out was Marcus Fizer.

And I got to sit right behind him on the Austin Toros this year, and when he wanted to play, he was dominant, but the problem is that somehow the heart and confidence he had in college never translated to the NBA.

He did get called up late though...so maybe next year !



D (not always right) D

 

I think you are going to have better luck with Vince than you have had with your basketball picks.

 

Hey, I get a lot of basketball picks right, I was on the Yao Ming bandwagon right away, with the same philosophy.

If you go back and read my posts about Yao, it was not so much of what he was, but what he could become.

Just like Yao, I think Vince can become one of the all time greats, and you don't pass that up at the most important position on the team.

DD

 

Well, there's a brain fart on my part.

 

Speak for yourself.

You should go to a game or two. Get there at about 9am and hang out with the tailgaters for the next 3 or 4 hours. Then tell me again that most Texan fans are just casual fans who are just waiting for us to win a Superbowl before they get excited...

 

Yep, there are plenty of hard core fans. And if the lukewarm fans here had gone last year they would have heard the Reggie Bush chants.