I miss the Oilers and the Earl days....the Moon days, the playoffs year in, year out....the teams that hated to come to the astrodome to play that @#$! toughass team from Texas....miss them a ton. I miss Mike Holovak and a real NFL scouting department too.
Agreed. The Dome was a place that teams did not like to come. I remember the House of Pain years with fondness. The NFL of 20 years ago which I grew up with as a kid and as a teenager was FAR SUPERIOR in almost every respect to the overly corporate game we have now.
I miss the rivalries the Oilers used to have with the Steelers and the other AFC Central teams. The late 80's-early 90's were an awesome time in the AFC Central. All of the teams were pretty good and ALL of those teams hated each other with a passion. I miss the attitude and spunk of Jerry Glanville. He reinstituted pride in our team and instead of having a doormat for Chuck Noll and the Steelers to walk all over we had a team that punched them in the mouth. That is why Noll dressed him down. Coming to Houston was no longer the picnic it was under Ed Biles or Hugh Campbell.
I hated the Cincinnati Bengals and Boomer ****ing Esiason with a passion of a hundred suns. Wyche hated Glanville and that game that they beat us like 61-7 and then rubbed in with a late field goal sucked. But you know what, those rivalries created games that I couldn't wait to see at the Dome or on TV. Seriously, whenever I see footage of the Dome during that era I get a little misty-eyed because damn it I LOVED the Oilers and their hold on me was great and they still to this day pull on the heart strings despite being dead for over 12 years.
Yes the Oilers choked in the playoffs but they were still HOUSTON'S TEAM in a way that the Texans have in no way been close to reaching. I know they weren't the Steelers or Cowboys in terms of history but I am still fond of the memories I have. The fans back then too were loyal, leather lunged regular folks. The NFL back then did not price out its traditional blue collar fan base. I would see the same people around me every game in our field box seats and these people had tickets for years. Now, I see a different group of people around me for the most part every game.
It KILLS ME that Earl's and Moon's records are in Possum Holler and not here in Houston where they belong. When I read that the Titans are thinking about wearing Oilers throwbacks next year for a couple of games, it made me sad. If I saw that I don't know how I would react because it sickens me that OUR TEAM was STOLEN AWAY from us. Do you realize that Fisher has been the coach there since JACK PARDEE got fired in the middle of the 1994 season. To think if Bud wasn't such an asshole and if Bob Lanier was not such a heartless **** we would still have him as our coach and would have enjoyed a Super Bowl and a 10-0 start.
I feel betrayed by the Texans. I intently followed the expansion process and was on the old LA Times message board back then with a small group of loyal Houstonians and we engaged in spirited battles with them over who should get the next team. A guy who I can't remember his name actually went to the NFL owner's meetings back in 1999 and reported back to us his findings. Dude actually spoke with various owners.
I was ECSTATIC when we were awarded another team. Didn't like the Texans name but loved the logo and unis. McNair seemed to be so on the ball and seemed to be the antithesis of Bud Adams. I thought Houston finally had a good owner and that the Texans would become a model franchise.
I never expected that the Texans would turn into a complete laughingstock franchise that for the better part of a decade has given the Bengals and Lions a run for their money in being the worst in football. I just don't get how this happened. I want to love the Texans but to get the love your team needs to EARN it by doing something on the field. That we still suck so bad and are really no closer to being a legit contender than our first couple of years as a franchise is demoralizing.