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The 2004 Houston Texans(20 year anniversary)

ShinobiMusashi

ShinobiMusashi

Waterboy
I posted a thread about our very first game in 2002 vs the Cowboys and another about the 2003 opening day upset over Miami. Now that we have reached the "20 years ago" for the 2004 season I guess I figured why not bring this whole season back during this little dead period before the draft?

I know I'm weird but I actually have a lot of nostalgia and love for this year, plenty of good memories watching the Texans that season that was just a fun year that year all around. Our first ever 2 game win streak was a big deal at the time, some upsets over KC in Arrowhead, our first ever wins over the Titans both here at home and in their house since we swept both them and Jacksonville that year(finished 7-9) and some excellent games that we lost that year the Vikings and Packers games were both great. David Carr at one point was being well protected and was actually playing good with nice stats leading us to our first ever winning record at 4-3. Jamie Sharper was bad ass as was Aaron Glenn and Dunta Robinsons looked like a future star. The team had a little bit of heart and looked like a bright future, of course we should have known the whole thing was predestined to blow up in 2005 and we were set for our first of like 9 total resets/rebuilds lol.
 
The Raiders game from 2004 was recently uploaded to Youtube last month, I loved watching it yesterday. Andre Johnson goes at it with Charles Woodson for a few plays and has a big play against him late. Jamie Sharper strip sack for a touchdown. They tried to pick on the rookie Dunta Robinson and he had 2 interceptions showed out after getting burned for a big catch earlier in the game. This was the only time we ever played against Jerry Rice also as he was still a starter for the Raiders here(before being traded to Seahawks that year), so that was cool to see him vs the Texans at Reliant/NRG field the pre-Brady GOAT. We pulled out from a decent 17-17 game, Carr never got sacked and looked good won it 30-17 to pull off our first 2 game win streak, excellent watch, highly recommended for any Texans fan.
 
The Bears game from 2004 was also uploaded last month by somebody else, I also watched it yesterday afternoon it was 6 degrees the coldest game of the NFL season at the time and perhaps one of the coldest we ever played as a franchise. Defense looked phenomenal against Lovie Smith rookie head coach of the Bears, big win for our team on a historic field in true football weather.
 
Seeing both of those games pop up last month finally gives me hope of one day seeing that 2004 Texan vs Vikings game surfacing one day, one of my favorite games ever, an underrated shootout.
 
This has been a loser franchise since their inception. But hey, the McNair's made billions. With this said I made life long friends with fans that sat around me for the better part of 2 decades. So something good came out of the McNair's ineptitude.
 
This team should have been better than 7-9. This was a fun season, for anybody that wasn't a fan back then it was a good time. I was 20 years old still fresh and loved this team. Dominick Davis was bad ass running back that nobody remembers. Andre Johnson had one of his best years as a baby, Carr had a 5 game stretch where he looked like he was going to be legit, the defense was just fun to watch. The atmosphere in the stadium was also way different from today, way more electric, something about it that seems gone. Those crowds from 2002-2004 were pretty ******* lit.

-Week one we had the Chargers beat, almost pulled off another huge opening day upset because that team was stacked. We were winning in the third quarter until Brees and Tomlinson came back in the 4th to win it 27-20. This is another game that I would love to watch today, we took a pretty good playoff team with HOF'ers into deep water.

-Week two the loss to the Lions is the one that always frustrated me about this season. Houston had way more talent than Detroit, way better coaching staff, this was a weird loss that made no sense to me.

-Week 3 going into Arrowhead and beating the Chiefs was huge, and this was an awesome game.

-Week 4 win over the Raiders I posted about it above, awesome watch over the weekend I enjoyed it. Fun times.

-Week 5 was the Vikings game, underrated gem one of the better regular season games of that decade that nobody has ever seen. We were actually pretty hot going into this, going for a 3 game win streak. Vikings took a 21 point lead but we came back to tie it up and put it into OT, but lost it on a bomb 34-28, crazy stats put up in that one by everybody.

-Week 6 we finally get our very first ever win over the Titans on the road in their house in Tennessee with Bud Adams watching. If I remember correctly this was the one handed bobbled Andre Johnson TD catch that sealed the win.

-Week 7 took down the Jaguars 20-6, this was the battle red game where Petey Faggins stood up on the barrier after the pick 6 giving us perhaps my favorite Texans photo ever(my desktop background).

So with that win, we had won 4 out of 5 with the only loss being the OT thriller vs Minnesota. We were pretty damn hot for a 3 year old baby team. During those 5 games Carr's stat line: 64% completion percentage, 1,375 passing yards, 7 TDs 2 ints, 106.3 passer rating, the Texans were 4-3 with their first ever winning record, we just took down the sell out Titans for the first time, this was fun times that were seemingly erased by how that season ended and how terrible things fell apart in 2005, nobody really remembers this little time where things were fun.
 
Just got hammered by playoff teams after that and brought right back down to reality, Denver and Indy destroyed us. Manning was on his record breaking season where he took down Marino's record, with 2 of those games against us. After the Denver and Indy losses we lost the Green Bay game at home on ESPN Sunday Night Football. I remember this being a bad ass game even thought Favre took us down in the end(they BARELY ******* made that FG!).

After that we beat the Titans again this time our first time ever beating them in Houston. Then lost to the Jets(playoff team) and the rematch vs the Colts(more competitive game). Those losses dropped us to 5-8 but we went into Chicago and took down the Bears in 8 degree weather, then completed the sweep of the Jaguars(I want to say that sweep pretty much was what knocked them out of the playoffs that year? They were pretty good if I remember correctly in 2004).

The big red flag though, and a huge sign of things that were on the horizon for us in 2005 was that season finale at home vs The Browns. Cleveland was 3-12 going into that game one of the worst teams in the NFL that year. Would have been nice to get that win and finish 8-8 but this team really laid down in that game. IDK if the o-line was pissed at Carr letting him get sacked but Cleveland got him 6 times. In all reality this team should have been 9-7 in 2004, those losses to the Lions and Browns were inexcusable and a big sign that this team was not being run in the right direction.
 
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And just got to throw it out there the 2005 collapse was inevitable, and set up by the NFL with the way our expansion draft played out, this team was meant to be bad. The NFL did not want this team in the AFC Championship in 2 years like the Jaguars, it was set up for us to bad almost by design. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight I don't know that there was really anything different that could have been done, any talented players in that expansion draft either their contracts were up by 2005 or they were too old. That expansion draft was a joke, several teams had dug up guys on there that hadn't played in years.
 
Also it’s pretty dope that this forum still has threads from this far back, if I get some time I want to dig through some of those game threads and see what the vibe was like here back then 🤙
 
Had a blast digging through this forum today to the 2004 threads, not many message boards on the web can say they have archives still from that far back so kudos.

The most interesting thing to read was the rise and fall of David Carr. Early to mid-season and he’s being praised right alongside Andre Johnson as future stars, by the end of the season posters were talking about him being boo’ed and people actually cheering for Tony ******* Banks to come in that last game. Damn. To think Andre went on to be a Hall of Famer.

Somebody posted that we should go after Kurt Warner which was bold at the time, he was mostly thought to be done after being benched for Eli in 2004. He would have been better than Schaub was he really available?

Big signs were there that it was time to clean the swamp after that decline in the back half of 2004. Capers and the OC Palmer both should have been out after losing to the Lions and Browns. Also should have gone after legit QB to compete for starting job in 05. They tanked 2005 and set the team back even further.
 
They really should have got the ball rolling in between 2004 and 2005 to start building this team, instead they kept Capers and Palmer going into 2005 and it was just a totally wasted bullshit year. I think that was a huge set back that delayed our growth long term wasting that offseason.
 
I do think concussions could have also factored into David’s collapse that year I remember he got suplexed on his head vs Green Bay and knocked out cold, no flag, finished the game.
 
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