Thank you sir. Oilers got me right at a prime age - right in the heart. Bubba McDowell was my favorite. I watched Gary Browns first dozen runs and knew he'd be a stud. Michale Barrow etc. Loved it.
Bubba McDowell got it to 35-3. I didn’t know back then but that was the beginning of the end of the Houston Oilers.
Had the Oilers not blown that game they would probably still exist.
I won’t get into all the details but my sister was a Lanier by marriage so I had the inside info of what was going down back then, at least from the Lanier POV.
Bud tried to pull a fast one on Lanier and it backfired. Apparently he initially didn’t really want to relocate but eventually had no choice (by his own doing). Lanier was pretty teed off and out of spite just decided not to deal with him at all after that. Ironically they were all big Oilers fans. My brother in law (Bob’s son) was a huge fan.
Years later, John McClain gave me Bud’s side of that story. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. John was pretty adamant that Bud was not making all those calls. He told me that Bud didn’t want to move and took some bad advice. He also said that Bud’s middle finger antic was directed towards Lanier and not the city itself or the fans.
Anyway, it’s all history now and I have a Super Bowl to host here on Sunday.