Search this site
Matching entries from Houston's Clear Thinkers
2008 Weekly local football review
(WRMSOX photo; previous weekly reviews are here) Rice 38 Western Michigan 14 As expected, the Owls (10-3) rolled to an easy win in the Texas Bowl last Tuesday as star QB Chase Clement (30-44/307 yds/3 TD's/12 carries for 72...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Morry Gash; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 24 Packers 21 Could the Texans actually be turning into a reasonably dangerous team so long as they hang on to the ball? Despite four turnovers, the Texans (6-7) rallied...
Houston Texans, Year Seven
Year Seven of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday with a road game against the Steelers, so it's time for my fifth annual preview of the team (previous annual previews are here). Largely ignored amidst the ubiquitous mainstream media...
Chasing rainbows
I enjoy watching football games, but I have never been able to understand the mainstream media's fascination with pre-season football practice. I mean, really. Is there anything more boring than football practice? Well, maybe pre-season football games, but that's...
2007 Weekly local football review
(David J. Phillip/AP Photo; previous weekly reviews here) Texans 34 Broncos 13 It was the Mario Williams show last Thursday evening as the second-year defensive end dominated the line of scrimmage in leading Texans' (7-7) to a convincing victory over...
Houston Texans, Year Six
Rejoice! The seemingly unending National League Football pre-season is over! It's Year Six for the Houston Texans and the fourth annual preview of the Texans since this blog began back in 2004 (previous previews are here). Thankfully, this past off-season...
Richard Justice, Texans Cheerleader
As noted in this earlier post, Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice was a devoted supporter of the Charlie Casserly tenure as Texans general manager far beyond the time that most reasoned observers had concluded that Texans ship was leaking profusely. After...
The trick in drafting NFL players
Today is the beginning of the annual two-day media feeding frenzy known as the National Football League Draft, which I'm beginning to think is becoming more popular than the NFL games themselves. Channeling research about the draft that was addressed...
The end of the Carr era
The David Carr era of the Houston Texans came to a merciful end yesterday as the Texans released Carr, the team's first NFL draft pick in its five year history. I didn't agree with the Texans decision to take Carr...
The curious attraction of the NFL Draft
This earlier post noted the institutionalized fanaticism that is involved in the recruitment of big-time college football players. But that fanaticism is really nothing compared to the obsession that many professional football fans will indulge over the next several weeks...
2006 Weekly local football review
Texans 14 Browns 6 Despite having no effective passing game, the Texans (6-10) rode a strong second half rushing performance from rookie RB Chris Taylor and another spunky defensive effort to beat the Browns and fulfill my pre-season prediction that...
There is a football game in Houston today?
That was the question that one of my sons asked me incredulously yesterday. With the Texans generating no positive buzz in their hometown, not many folks really care much about watching or talking about the Texans. Thus, casual fans such...
2006 Weekly local football review
Patriots 40 Texans 7 Just when you thought it was impossible for the Texans (4-10) to stoop any lower, the Texans' offense rolled over and played dead against the Patriots. This one was over by Sunday morning brunch as the...
It's football time in Texas
It's the lull before the onslaught of the college football bowl games, but football still permeates the culture of Texas as the high school playoffs move toward conclusion, the Cowboys contend for an NFL playoff berth and the Texans prepare...
Houston Texans, Year Five
Has it really been only a year since the pre-season review of the Texans' 2005 season? Look at all that has transpired over the past year: The Texans had a disastrous start to what was considered a promising 2005 season,...
Say what?
Chronicle reporter Megan Manfull opens her article on the latest development in Texanville with the following paragraph: Spencer, an offensive tackle out of Pittsburgh, will receive a $610,000 signing bonus on a four-year contract that voids to three years. He...
Casserly is gone
As noted in this post from over a month ago, one of the worse-kept secrets in Houston sports circles over the past several months is that Houston Texans General Manager Charlie Casserly would -- take your pick -- either resign...
Did John McClain just call himself a charlatan?
Chronicle sports columnist John McClain makes the following rather odd observations at the outset of his column today on the quality of the Texans' picks in the just-completed NFL draft of college football players: "First of all, let's reiterate that...
The bloom is definitely off the USC rose
Although the University of Southern California football program has had a pretty good run under Coach Pete Carroll over the past several years, there is little question that events over this past weekend have confirmed that the USC program is...
Bye-bye Reggie; Hello Mario
Although perhaps not always fulfilling, things are certainly always interesting over at Texansville. In a stunning development, the Texans ignored conventional wisdom and threw today's National Football League draft into chaos by signing North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams...
The intrigue of the NFL Draft
This NY Times article from over the weekend discusses the ups and downs that prospects endure in the run-up for the annual National Football League draft, but even that did not prepare me for this: For the first time, there...
Is Casserly gone?
ProFootballTalk.com is reporting that embattled Texans General Manager Charlie Casserly will be replaced as the Texans GM after the upcoming NFL Draft: A league source tells us that the Houston Texans plan to fire G.M. Charley Casserly after the 2006...
The twilight zone of the Houston Rockets
For some time now, Chronicle sportswriter John Lopez has been writing the most insightful pieces on the local newspaper's sportspage. In his column today, Lopez continues that trend by expanding on the theme of this post from over a year...
National Championship redux
Following a weekend in which University of Texas alums continue to bask in the glow of their university's first National Championship football team in a generation, I pass along the following items of interest: The flat-out cleverest piece on the...
2005 Weekly local football review
Jaguars 38 Texans 20 The 2-13 Texans got a leg up on the 3-12 49er's in next weekend's Reggie Bush Bowl in San Francisco as the Jags scorched them for 21 points in the final quarter to put this one...
Evaluating Charlie Casserly's draft picks
Over the years, I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to represent several professional and major college football coaches in their contract negotiations and related legal matters. Through that experience, I have become friends with quite a few...
2005 Weekly local football review
Titans 13 Texans 10 Texans kicker Kris Brown made his contribution to the Reggie Bush sweepstakes today as he missed not one, but two, field goals in the closing minutes to ensure that the Texans (1-12) remain in position to...
The hope of the Texans?
How exactly does a human body make the kind of cut that USC running back Reggie Bush is making in the picture on the left? Although the Texas Longhorns must find a way to stop Bush in the Rose Bowl,...
2005 Weekly local football review
Texas Longhorns 62 Baylor 0. The Longhorns (9-0; 6-0 Big 12) relentless march to the BCS National Championship Game against USC continued on Saturday as the Horns barely broke a sweat in racing past undermanned Baylor and Miami took care...
2005 Weekly local football review
Texas Longhorns 42 Colorado 17 Vince Young prevents the Horns (6-0) from having a post-OU letdown as the Horns cruise over what probably is the best Big 12 North team. The win sets up what will certainly be one of...
2005 Weekly local football review
Pittsburgh 27 Texans 7"Houston, we have a problem." After an absolutely awful performance in Week One of the NFL schedule, the Texans outdid themselves in their home opener by rolling over and playing dead to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-7. This...
Houston Texans, Year Four
As the fourth season of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday in Buffalo against the Bills, Houston professional football fans no longer consider the Texans an NFL expansion franchise. As a result, it's now put up or shut up time...
2004 Weekly local football review
Packers 16 Texans 13. On ESPN Sunday Night Football, the Pack handed the increasingly hapless Texans their third straight loss on a last second field goal despite the fact that they were down to their third string running back and...
2004 Weekly local football review
Given the over-analysis of football that takes place in Texas, I am going to institute a brief review of each local team's game from the past weekend with links to more thorough analysis: Chargers 27 Texans 20. In their first...
The NFL as Lake Wobegon
John McClain, the Houston Chronicle's National Football League writer, apparently believes that the NFL is a bit like Garrison Keillor's fictional Minnesota town Lake Wobegon, where "all of the children are above-average." In today's Chronicle here and here, McClain rates...
SCOTUS turns down Clarett motion for stay
As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down football player Maurice Clarett's motion to stay the Second Circuit's order of earlier this week that bars Clarett and similarly situated underclassmen from this weekend's NFL Draft pending the Second Circuit's final...
Clarett seeks stay from SCOTUS
The Maurice Clarett v. NFL case went to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday as Clarett's attorneys filed a motion requesting that SCOTUS stay the Second Circuit's Monday ruling that barred Clarett from being eligible for this weekend's NFL Draft. Although...
Appeals court bars Clarett from NFL draft
In a surprising ruling reported here, a three judge panel of the the Second Circuit Court of Appeals barred former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett from participating in next week's National Football League annual draft of collegiate players. Here...
NCAA supports the NFL position in Clarett case
According to this Chronicle story, the NCAA filed a legal brief Monday in support of the NFL's appeal to keep former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett out of this year's NFL draft. Previous posts on this lawsuit can be...
NFL and Union in negotiations over Clarett situation
The National Football League and the NFL Players Association have recently been involved in negotiations to insert language into their current Collective Bargaining Agreement that would require all draft-eligible players to be three years removed from their high school graduation....
Texans turn a sixth round draft pick into a third round pick
As noted in this earlier post, the Houston Texans chose former University of Michigan quarterback Drew Henson in the sixth round of last year's NFL Draft even though Henson was playing baseball at the time in the New York Yankees...
NFL Moves for a Stay in the Clarett Case
This previous post reported on the National Football League's recent loss in attempting to prevent former Ohio State underclassman running back Maurice Clarett from entering this year's NFL Draft. Yesterday, the NFL requested that the federal district judge stay the...
Clarett Beats NFL
Maurice Clarett, the talented running back who led Ohio State to a thrilling victory over Miami in the 2003 National Championship game, sued the National Football League several months ago in this complaint alleging that the NFL was violating anti-trust...
McNair is on a Serious Roll
Bob McNair, the majority owner of the NFL's Houston Texans, is an old friend and a wonderful man. Bob and the Texans just completed a masterful job in leading Houston's hosting of the highly successful Super Bowl XXXVIII, and now...
Feed Subscription
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries matching '"NFL Draft"'. [What is this?]
