The Pencil Neck
Hall of Fame
The letterman jackets were perceived no differently by the Texans fanbase than by "outsiders" [except momentarily].........the embarrassment should have been predictable..............because they were who they were.
Again, focusing on the outside. The Fanbase is not the team. It's the guys on the team that are the team. And they were feeling pretty good about themselves.
IF (and notice that's an uppercase if because it's a BIG if) they had been able to continue their winning ways, then that could have been a watershed moment for the team. It didn't work out that way and ended up being exactly the opposite.
But to me, it doesn't matter what anyone outside the locker room thinks about those team building moments.
It's like when the Patriots were 1-3 and just lost a game 10-30 against the Dolphins. Belichick buried a football in front of the team as a motivational thing (a couple of times I think.) If his team hadn't turned it around after that, it would have been a joke. They turned it around and it became a great move.
The jackets weren't the problem. People's perceptions of the Texans weren't the problem. The problem was that Kubiak wouldn't acknowledge that Matt Schaub was toast by that point.