GP
Go Texans!
Mr. Bob McNair;
Enclosed, you will find my Texans gear.
I have posted your statements, below, and would like to comment on your remarks:
"I was just sort of overwhelmed by the comments that our competitors had to say about our team, because it had never happened before like this," McNair said. "They were all, frankly, pulling for us after the way we came back... They just said it was just one of the most impressive comebacks they had ever seen. What was interesting was they didn't talk about the overtime. They didn't talk about the interception. All they could talk about was the comeback. They could just not believe it.
MY REMARKS: It wasn’t a comeback. It was a loss. A comeback is something like the Bills coming back from 35-3 to then actually beat the Oilers in the playoffs. When Matt Schaub runs the 2-minute offense, Gary Kubiak has said that the control is in Schaub’s hands. Look at what happened: We attempted a comeback, and almost sealed it completely. In Overtime, who picks up the reins of the offense and tells Schaub what plays to run? That’s right: Kubiak and/or Dennison. And what happened? Pick 6 for a TD. Backed up against our own goal line, we do not RUN the ball. Nope. Can’t do that, not with the leagues best running back and dare I say one of the best run blocking schemes of the whole league. Instead, we even empty the backfield on one play and this tells the Ravens exactly what to expect: A PASS. This is absolutely putrid, in my opinion. What other coach would do this, in the NFL, after having been a head coach for 5 years and having been an offensive coordinator prior to that? Having also been an NFL QB prior to THAT. Our QB, Matt Schaub, is better at running this team on game day than his highly-esteemed coach.
"The level of respect that they have for our team and how close they think we are to really being not just a good team but an outstanding team, it was nice to hear your peer group say that about you. So I just wanted the team to know how close not only we think they are, but how close our competitors think they are, to being an outstanding team.”
MY REMARKS: People just love that we put ourselves in a deep hole (like we do almost EVERY game, by the way) and they thought it was so gosh-darn awesome that we made a “comeback.” I guess this world has become so namby-pamby that a failed comeback (after having spotted the Ravens an entire two quarters of football to start the game off) is regarded so highly now. I was under the impression that the measuring stick was (a) wins, and (b) enough wins to actually, you know, WIN the game and go to the playoffs. Your comments enrage me to no end. You are the team’s owner, and your public statements have been nothing but limp noodles and lollipops. How does that translate to the product we see on the field? Well, they TOO are a bunch of limp noodles and lollipops. It trickles down, I suppose.
McNair was asked if all the positive remarks from other owners would have an effect on Texans coach Gary Kubiak's future with the team.
MY REMARKS: Of course it won’t impact anything. You’ve already decided, as represented by your publicly made comments outlined here, that you think “we’re on the right track.” Unless this is all some sort of code language you’re using. At this point, who the Hell knows if what you say IS or IS NOT the truth anymore? You had said, prior to this season, that “Playoffs will be the expectation,” but maybe you have a different meaning for the word playoffs than I do. I had assumed that after four steady years of “being on the right track” that we’d actually have some accountability going into year 5. Guess not. I suppose “the right track” is a matter of semantics. I guess it’s all subjective.
"I think what it does, it's sort of an affirmation that we're on the right track," McNair said. "Clearly, we have to do better, because what we've done wasn't good enough. But (it affirms) that we're on the right track, and I've felt that way all along.
"We'll review everything at the end of the year, and will we make some changes? I'm sure we will make some -- we'll see some things that need to be improved. But we're very, very close to having the kind of team I think that we can all be proud of, and we just have to keep working hard and push it over the top. I think we're close."
MY REMARKS: Your changes are at a glacial pace. While I appreciate the theory of glacial change, as it pertains to some organizational cultures, I think you’re failing to understand that the NFL is a sports league which has the fewest games in a season: 16 games. Frankly, there has been enough change, spread out over a period of over 5 years, to have a large enough sampling size to understand if what you have is really working or if it is failing to produce the desired results. This is, of course, if we are indeed talking the same language and not some “code language” that we have had to decipher while reading your comments in various sports news stories about “our team.” But I digress…we’re not close, Mr. McNair. We’re not hand-grenade close, and we’re not horseshoe close either. And last time I check, being close only counts in those two games. It doesn’t count in the NFL.
I congratulate you on running a very professional and respectable franchise, but I cannot applaud you for the actual reason all of us are football fans in the first place: To (a) win games, and to (b) win enough games to get into the playoffs and enter The Great Race for a championship. We will not see the playoffs this year, nor will we see them next year if Gary Kubiak is the head coach for this team. The man [Kubiak] can’t even watch critical, crucial plays as they transpire on the field for crying out loud! While this does not mean he’s a bad coach, it is at least a visual commentary on how the man operates and what message he sends to his team: “We’re probably going to lose, so I can’t stand to watch.” I sit and watch other head coaches in the league on Sundays, and I see them STARING headlong into the action during a game-deciding play. They aren’t looking away. They’re EMBRACING the moment. They fully expect their “kids” to push through and deliver in the game-deciding moment. Our guy? Nope. Psychology is such a huge part of this game, and it’s why men like Lombardi succeeded. I don’t want to see what “changes” are coming ‘round the bend after this season. I doubt those changes will be anything more than minor, non-eventful changes having no substantial impact on the state of this team. This team has hit a definite wall. Not a figurative wall. A literal wall.
The Texans have set an NFL record this season by becoming the first team in league history to come back from a deficit of at least 14 points to take the lead or tie, only to end up losing, in four games.
MY REMARKS: Do you know how sad this statistic is? It’s not something to be proud of, Mr. McNair. It is nothing to embrace for the future. It means we start slow, then have to run like Hell juuuust to get a shot at winning. Opposing teams only have to buckle in and hold on until the last few minutes of the game…because our team will find a way to crater and give the game away. Honestly, we didn’t even deserve to have “come back” in those games. When sad patterns are the norm, there is a monumental problem staring you right in the face. Sometimes, the common denominator of all our problems is ourselves. There is a flawed mentality engrained within this team, and it has become a tradition that fleshes itself out on the field. I look at that stat, Mr. McNair, and it doesn’t encourage me that we are “on the right track.” To the contrary, it tells me many things that do not include the word “right.” If this is your way of finding solace in misery, then please keep your remarks to yourself. The fans of this team were patient and trusting during the Capers era. We then began to see small victories in the early years of the Kubiak era. Now? The improvements have ceased. There’s regression in many areas, and it’s too many to list at this time. You are at the “stagnation” level in the Product Life Cycle. Next comes either “Re-invention” or “Decline and Death.” I surely think you to be a better businessman than what I read in the funny papers. Surely you would choose “Re-invention” and would therefore desire to begin the Product Life Cycle anew again?
Each of those four losses has come during a 1-6 skid that has dropped the Texans' record from 4-2 to 5-8, which has all but ended their hopes of making the playoffs for the first time in team history.
MY REMARKS: This has become the life of a dedicated Texans fan: Wondering at which point in the season do we hit that magical skid that ends our hopes of playoffs? I don’t think I need to elaborate here.
"It's a killer," McNair said. "I hurt more than anybody. To see that we're so close to being where we want to be and then to be denied is just very disheartening. But you know, it's like life. I mean, does everything work out in your life? I doubt it. You don't quit, do you? No, you just suck it up and go on. And that's what you have to do. That's one reason this game is such a great reflection of life. It's what we face every day. And our fans, I feel their frustration and what have you. I get letters. I write them all back and tell them, 'Hey, I'm just as frustrated as you are.' But nobody wants to win more than I do, or Gary. I'll tell you that."
MY REMARKS: I wonder if you will really read my letter. You say you write them back. If you write me back, please do not re-issue the same standard, status-quo Public Relations hoopla that you use with everyone else. I know my letter is harshly worded. It drips with sarcasm. It isn’t a very nice letter. But it’s brutally honest about what I feel. And I am not alone. There are others like me. We’re depressed. We’re discouraged. The one hope we have is that the owner [You] will awaken and realize that it’s not a bad thing to start a new day at Reliant. I understand the looming lockout in 2011. I understand you have Kubiak under contract through 2011. It just feels like you’re already conceding 2011 and that nothing can happen until 2012.
Put yourself in this fan’s shoes for a second. How do I stick with you for that long? I have this patience for my spouse, naturally, because my marriage is a covenant representative of the covenant shared between Jesus and anyone who has accepted Him as being Who He claims to be. But to extend this same sort of arrangement (the emotional aspects, obviously!) to you, for another year, to just sit and watch and wonder how things will evolve? No thanks. I can’t do it. I’ve seen this movie before. I’ve seen it 80 times over the course of the past 5 years. And I won’t watch it one more time.
When you decide to put out a new offering, only then am I watching the Texans. I am canceling my subscription to NFL SundayTicket. I almost made it to 10 straight years of paying hundred of dollars every year, since my local market doesn’t want to carry this team who is “on the right track,” according to some. Did you know that in Amarillo, TX, the local CBS station won’t even carry Texans games and hasn’t for its entire existence? Oh sure, they carry the first game or two of the season, but after that the national director forces them to exhibit the best matchup of the week. The FOX affiliate carries every single Dallas Cowboys game all season long, even if they are worse than the Texans. But the Amarillo, TX local CBS affiliate? Nope. We’re nothing. We’re a joke. We’re the sad sack in the room who needs others to come give us a hug, such as the Ravens linebacker Suggs did to Matt Schaub Monday night. Such as these other men did to you at the owners meetings. “Hey, pal. Come here. Need a hug?”
Seriously, I think you are either talking “in code language” or you are serious about how good you feel about this team right now. Either way, the tone and the ideology you are displaying is disturbing to the average football fan. Again, I love your honorable character. I love that this team is respectable. Those players deserve more than to be consoled after losses, Mr. McNair. They need more than that. They deserve more than that. Pep talks and hugs will not cut it, though.
One of McNair's primary messages to the players on Thursday was the same thing that Kubiak and his staff have been reinforcing: To step up and make plays in crunch time. Kubiak said that McNair told him before practice that he would like to address the team.
"I think it's good," Kubiak said. "Our guys know how much he cares about them. He's out here at practice all the time. He's in the locker room. He's very active from that standpoint with this football team and he doesn't say a whole lot, and when he does speak, people pay attention."
MY REMARKS: I was a kid when the Oilers left Houston. I did not live in Houston. Never have. Have always lived up here in the Texas panhandle. My father was, and still is, a Cowboys fan. As a kid, I wanted to go my own way and be a fan of a different team. Well, back then it was CBS who was showing the NFC games every week. Therefore, my dad was watching Cowboys games on the living room television. I had a little black and white TV, not much bigger than 15 inches I think. So I sat back in my room, on Sundays, and flipped the channel until I got to the NBC station. Lubbock, TX NBC affiliate would show every single Houston Oilers game, no matter how good or bad they were every season. It was there, as a kid, watching a little 15-inch black & white TV back in my own bedroom, that I feel in love with the Oilers. I could watch “my team” play. And I could root for them. I could celebrate with them. I could hang my head and be disappointed with them.
After the crushing loss to the Bills in the playoffs, I asked my parents if they could keep me home from school the next day. I was THAT depressed. My friends at school laughed at me for weeks, but it didn’t hurt me. Never made a dent. I never stopped following the Oilers. As you said, it was representative of “life,” and we just pick ourselves up off the ground and move forward from there.
continued on next post....
Enclosed, you will find my Texans gear.
I have posted your statements, below, and would like to comment on your remarks:
"I was just sort of overwhelmed by the comments that our competitors had to say about our team, because it had never happened before like this," McNair said. "They were all, frankly, pulling for us after the way we came back... They just said it was just one of the most impressive comebacks they had ever seen. What was interesting was they didn't talk about the overtime. They didn't talk about the interception. All they could talk about was the comeback. They could just not believe it.
MY REMARKS: It wasn’t a comeback. It was a loss. A comeback is something like the Bills coming back from 35-3 to then actually beat the Oilers in the playoffs. When Matt Schaub runs the 2-minute offense, Gary Kubiak has said that the control is in Schaub’s hands. Look at what happened: We attempted a comeback, and almost sealed it completely. In Overtime, who picks up the reins of the offense and tells Schaub what plays to run? That’s right: Kubiak and/or Dennison. And what happened? Pick 6 for a TD. Backed up against our own goal line, we do not RUN the ball. Nope. Can’t do that, not with the leagues best running back and dare I say one of the best run blocking schemes of the whole league. Instead, we even empty the backfield on one play and this tells the Ravens exactly what to expect: A PASS. This is absolutely putrid, in my opinion. What other coach would do this, in the NFL, after having been a head coach for 5 years and having been an offensive coordinator prior to that? Having also been an NFL QB prior to THAT. Our QB, Matt Schaub, is better at running this team on game day than his highly-esteemed coach.
"The level of respect that they have for our team and how close they think we are to really being not just a good team but an outstanding team, it was nice to hear your peer group say that about you. So I just wanted the team to know how close not only we think they are, but how close our competitors think they are, to being an outstanding team.”
MY REMARKS: People just love that we put ourselves in a deep hole (like we do almost EVERY game, by the way) and they thought it was so gosh-darn awesome that we made a “comeback.” I guess this world has become so namby-pamby that a failed comeback (after having spotted the Ravens an entire two quarters of football to start the game off) is regarded so highly now. I was under the impression that the measuring stick was (a) wins, and (b) enough wins to actually, you know, WIN the game and go to the playoffs. Your comments enrage me to no end. You are the team’s owner, and your public statements have been nothing but limp noodles and lollipops. How does that translate to the product we see on the field? Well, they TOO are a bunch of limp noodles and lollipops. It trickles down, I suppose.
McNair was asked if all the positive remarks from other owners would have an effect on Texans coach Gary Kubiak's future with the team.
MY REMARKS: Of course it won’t impact anything. You’ve already decided, as represented by your publicly made comments outlined here, that you think “we’re on the right track.” Unless this is all some sort of code language you’re using. At this point, who the Hell knows if what you say IS or IS NOT the truth anymore? You had said, prior to this season, that “Playoffs will be the expectation,” but maybe you have a different meaning for the word playoffs than I do. I had assumed that after four steady years of “being on the right track” that we’d actually have some accountability going into year 5. Guess not. I suppose “the right track” is a matter of semantics. I guess it’s all subjective.
"I think what it does, it's sort of an affirmation that we're on the right track," McNair said. "Clearly, we have to do better, because what we've done wasn't good enough. But (it affirms) that we're on the right track, and I've felt that way all along.
"We'll review everything at the end of the year, and will we make some changes? I'm sure we will make some -- we'll see some things that need to be improved. But we're very, very close to having the kind of team I think that we can all be proud of, and we just have to keep working hard and push it over the top. I think we're close."
MY REMARKS: Your changes are at a glacial pace. While I appreciate the theory of glacial change, as it pertains to some organizational cultures, I think you’re failing to understand that the NFL is a sports league which has the fewest games in a season: 16 games. Frankly, there has been enough change, spread out over a period of over 5 years, to have a large enough sampling size to understand if what you have is really working or if it is failing to produce the desired results. This is, of course, if we are indeed talking the same language and not some “code language” that we have had to decipher while reading your comments in various sports news stories about “our team.” But I digress…we’re not close, Mr. McNair. We’re not hand-grenade close, and we’re not horseshoe close either. And last time I check, being close only counts in those two games. It doesn’t count in the NFL.
I congratulate you on running a very professional and respectable franchise, but I cannot applaud you for the actual reason all of us are football fans in the first place: To (a) win games, and to (b) win enough games to get into the playoffs and enter The Great Race for a championship. We will not see the playoffs this year, nor will we see them next year if Gary Kubiak is the head coach for this team. The man [Kubiak] can’t even watch critical, crucial plays as they transpire on the field for crying out loud! While this does not mean he’s a bad coach, it is at least a visual commentary on how the man operates and what message he sends to his team: “We’re probably going to lose, so I can’t stand to watch.” I sit and watch other head coaches in the league on Sundays, and I see them STARING headlong into the action during a game-deciding play. They aren’t looking away. They’re EMBRACING the moment. They fully expect their “kids” to push through and deliver in the game-deciding moment. Our guy? Nope. Psychology is such a huge part of this game, and it’s why men like Lombardi succeeded. I don’t want to see what “changes” are coming ‘round the bend after this season. I doubt those changes will be anything more than minor, non-eventful changes having no substantial impact on the state of this team. This team has hit a definite wall. Not a figurative wall. A literal wall.
The Texans have set an NFL record this season by becoming the first team in league history to come back from a deficit of at least 14 points to take the lead or tie, only to end up losing, in four games.
MY REMARKS: Do you know how sad this statistic is? It’s not something to be proud of, Mr. McNair. It is nothing to embrace for the future. It means we start slow, then have to run like Hell juuuust to get a shot at winning. Opposing teams only have to buckle in and hold on until the last few minutes of the game…because our team will find a way to crater and give the game away. Honestly, we didn’t even deserve to have “come back” in those games. When sad patterns are the norm, there is a monumental problem staring you right in the face. Sometimes, the common denominator of all our problems is ourselves. There is a flawed mentality engrained within this team, and it has become a tradition that fleshes itself out on the field. I look at that stat, Mr. McNair, and it doesn’t encourage me that we are “on the right track.” To the contrary, it tells me many things that do not include the word “right.” If this is your way of finding solace in misery, then please keep your remarks to yourself. The fans of this team were patient and trusting during the Capers era. We then began to see small victories in the early years of the Kubiak era. Now? The improvements have ceased. There’s regression in many areas, and it’s too many to list at this time. You are at the “stagnation” level in the Product Life Cycle. Next comes either “Re-invention” or “Decline and Death.” I surely think you to be a better businessman than what I read in the funny papers. Surely you would choose “Re-invention” and would therefore desire to begin the Product Life Cycle anew again?
Each of those four losses has come during a 1-6 skid that has dropped the Texans' record from 4-2 to 5-8, which has all but ended their hopes of making the playoffs for the first time in team history.
MY REMARKS: This has become the life of a dedicated Texans fan: Wondering at which point in the season do we hit that magical skid that ends our hopes of playoffs? I don’t think I need to elaborate here.
"It's a killer," McNair said. "I hurt more than anybody. To see that we're so close to being where we want to be and then to be denied is just very disheartening. But you know, it's like life. I mean, does everything work out in your life? I doubt it. You don't quit, do you? No, you just suck it up and go on. And that's what you have to do. That's one reason this game is such a great reflection of life. It's what we face every day. And our fans, I feel their frustration and what have you. I get letters. I write them all back and tell them, 'Hey, I'm just as frustrated as you are.' But nobody wants to win more than I do, or Gary. I'll tell you that."
MY REMARKS: I wonder if you will really read my letter. You say you write them back. If you write me back, please do not re-issue the same standard, status-quo Public Relations hoopla that you use with everyone else. I know my letter is harshly worded. It drips with sarcasm. It isn’t a very nice letter. But it’s brutally honest about what I feel. And I am not alone. There are others like me. We’re depressed. We’re discouraged. The one hope we have is that the owner [You] will awaken and realize that it’s not a bad thing to start a new day at Reliant. I understand the looming lockout in 2011. I understand you have Kubiak under contract through 2011. It just feels like you’re already conceding 2011 and that nothing can happen until 2012.
Put yourself in this fan’s shoes for a second. How do I stick with you for that long? I have this patience for my spouse, naturally, because my marriage is a covenant representative of the covenant shared between Jesus and anyone who has accepted Him as being Who He claims to be. But to extend this same sort of arrangement (the emotional aspects, obviously!) to you, for another year, to just sit and watch and wonder how things will evolve? No thanks. I can’t do it. I’ve seen this movie before. I’ve seen it 80 times over the course of the past 5 years. And I won’t watch it one more time.
When you decide to put out a new offering, only then am I watching the Texans. I am canceling my subscription to NFL SundayTicket. I almost made it to 10 straight years of paying hundred of dollars every year, since my local market doesn’t want to carry this team who is “on the right track,” according to some. Did you know that in Amarillo, TX, the local CBS station won’t even carry Texans games and hasn’t for its entire existence? Oh sure, they carry the first game or two of the season, but after that the national director forces them to exhibit the best matchup of the week. The FOX affiliate carries every single Dallas Cowboys game all season long, even if they are worse than the Texans. But the Amarillo, TX local CBS affiliate? Nope. We’re nothing. We’re a joke. We’re the sad sack in the room who needs others to come give us a hug, such as the Ravens linebacker Suggs did to Matt Schaub Monday night. Such as these other men did to you at the owners meetings. “Hey, pal. Come here. Need a hug?”
Seriously, I think you are either talking “in code language” or you are serious about how good you feel about this team right now. Either way, the tone and the ideology you are displaying is disturbing to the average football fan. Again, I love your honorable character. I love that this team is respectable. Those players deserve more than to be consoled after losses, Mr. McNair. They need more than that. They deserve more than that. Pep talks and hugs will not cut it, though.
One of McNair's primary messages to the players on Thursday was the same thing that Kubiak and his staff have been reinforcing: To step up and make plays in crunch time. Kubiak said that McNair told him before practice that he would like to address the team.
"I think it's good," Kubiak said. "Our guys know how much he cares about them. He's out here at practice all the time. He's in the locker room. He's very active from that standpoint with this football team and he doesn't say a whole lot, and when he does speak, people pay attention."
MY REMARKS: I was a kid when the Oilers left Houston. I did not live in Houston. Never have. Have always lived up here in the Texas panhandle. My father was, and still is, a Cowboys fan. As a kid, I wanted to go my own way and be a fan of a different team. Well, back then it was CBS who was showing the NFC games every week. Therefore, my dad was watching Cowboys games on the living room television. I had a little black and white TV, not much bigger than 15 inches I think. So I sat back in my room, on Sundays, and flipped the channel until I got to the NBC station. Lubbock, TX NBC affiliate would show every single Houston Oilers game, no matter how good or bad they were every season. It was there, as a kid, watching a little 15-inch black & white TV back in my own bedroom, that I feel in love with the Oilers. I could watch “my team” play. And I could root for them. I could celebrate with them. I could hang my head and be disappointed with them.
After the crushing loss to the Bills in the playoffs, I asked my parents if they could keep me home from school the next day. I was THAT depressed. My friends at school laughed at me for weeks, but it didn’t hurt me. Never made a dent. I never stopped following the Oilers. As you said, it was representative of “life,” and we just pick ourselves up off the ground and move forward from there.
continued on next post....
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Happy Christmas everyone!!!!
Kubiak