Because Cleveland is now part of my territory and Im a bandwagon fan. Perry Mason has nothing on you.
Are you ever on point here. The Houston Oilers were prominently displayed in the original versions of the NFL Football Follies because they were so comically inept. Which is a prime reason why I believe that you see so many Cowboys fans in Houston because the years of Oilers futility coincided with the years of Cowboys' success. If you go into South Texas or the Valley or West Texas or the Panhandle, you are firmly in Cowboys country and the Oilers were then and the Texans are now somewhat of an afterthought. That's why I remain a bit miffed at McNair because he most definitely failed to learn from the mistakes of Adams and in some respects, managed to duplicate the Oilers experience for the fans with his turning a blind eye to the ineptness of Capers and Casserly. As I posted before, the ultimate responsibility for what happens has to go to the owner himself because he is the one constant factor in a franchise.
If I recall correctly, the "blackout" rule was originally instituted to protect the gate at NFL home games. At the time of its passage, the owners were afraid that televising home games on network (read free) TV would discourage the fans from attending the games in person. By making the home game telecasts subject to the number of ticket sales, the NFL more or less provided a powerful "incentive" to buy up the tickets for home games. This led to increased ticket sales at the gate which in turn, helped the NFL when it came time to negotiate with the major TV networks. Say what you want about Pete Rozelle but his tenure as NFL Commissioner proved to be very rewarding financially for the NFL owners.
Of course not. It's the House of Pain, Haywood Jeffries, Ernest Givens, Warren Moon, Mike Munchak, Bruce Matthews, Zo, Zo, Bubba McDowell, etc. that I miss. Generally, when one thinks of the Astros, one thinks of Bagwell and Biggio (and now Roy and Lance), before one thinks of McLane. In the same sense, now that I've moved on from the circumstances of that fat SOB ripping our Oilers from our city, when I remember the Columbia Blue I remember the players and the games, not him. I loved the Oilers. I still have my tattered 1993 AFC Central Division Champions T-shirt.
i don't miss 'em at all. more trouble than they were worth. btw, msn, how old are you? for some reason, i always assumed you were older than me, and i further assumed, independent of that, that people in my age range held more fondness for the luv ya blue era. i enjoyed the run-n-shoot seasons, but not near as much. i guess time has faded some of those memories, and now i look at that team as a collection of selfish egomaniacs that cost us a bigger prize.
oh, dude... sean jones, haywood jeffires, ernest givins, cris dishman, buddy ryan - those teams were made up of guys looking out for numero uno and no one else. even stand-up guys like matthews held out and missed significant time many times. there's been enough chatter then and in subsequent years to draw a pretty clear picture that this was not a team but a collection of selfish individuals.
Mid 30s. Luv ya Blue was great, but Scooby Doo had more of my attention back then. The Astros were my "first love" when it comes to sports, follwed shortly thereafter by Dream and Sampson's Rockets and Moon's Oilers.
But it was *our* collection of selfish individuals, and these things go in cycles. Changes in leadership can change these types of cultures. I think Jeff Fisher did well changing that culture, but his influence has been felt mostly in backwoods country to the north and east. But that's history. Go Texans!
