Progress Made, Despite Short Houston Texans History

Copyright (c) 2010 Matthew Love

Established as an expansion team in 2002, the Houston Texans history is relatively short. The Texans were created after the original Houston Oilers were moved to Tennessee and became the Tennessee Titans. The Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee by owner Bud Adams, this move costed him millions of dollars in legal fee's from the lawsuits. This move incurred a dry spell for Houston without a professional football team, since the NFL did not see the need to expand. Bob McNair, who had been working to bring the NHL to the city, instead founded Houston NFL Holdings, which was headed by Steve Patterson, an associate of McNair.

In 1997, a report was issued stating the attractiveness of Houston, Los Angeles, and Cleveland for expansion teams to come. The Browns' move to Baltimore had Cleveland as a promised destination for the next expansion team. This would have brought the total to 31 NFL teams in the league. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue praised the efforts of McNair and Patterson, including their decision to build a domed stadium to entice the NFL to return a team to Houston. Within the next three years, the Cleveland Browns were given a new team, and the NFL determined that they would add an additional team, either in L.A., Toronto, or Houston. This worried many of the fans of Houston football, because television and advertising revenue was a big part of football now, and they were almost certain that the NFL wouldn't turn down the chance to have a team in Los Angeles, which is the second-largest TV market in the country.

In 1999, it was decided that L.A. would get the expansion franchise, but only if they could have an ownership team and stadium deal in place by September 15th of that year. The two groups in L.A. were facing a standoff, and tax dollars were not allowed to be used for the new stadium, putting the progress at a standstill. It was at this point that they realized that L.A. was not nearly as prepared to host an NFL franchise as Houston, who already had plans for a state-of-the-art stadium and the proper people in place for team ownership and building the franchise. The Houston officials were told to attend a meeting in Atlanta with the NFL owners, at which point the L.A. group put in a bid of $540 million for the new franchise. However, McNair had better financial resources and wisdom, bidding $700 million for the franchise, this gave them the rights to the franchise, as well as the 2004 Super Bowl game.

Reliant Stadium broke ground in 2000, and the officials worked quickly to establish a team name, logo, and uniforms so that they could begin play as soon as the stadium was completed. In the later part of the year, the Houston Texans were christened during a downtown celebration, where the new team logo was unveiled. Dom Capers was hired in 2001 as the head coach of the team, and by 2002 the Houston Texans team was ready for action. Their first game came in September against the Cowboys, which they rightfully won. This made them only the second expansion team in NFL history to win their first game of the regular season, although they subsequently lost the next five games.

The successes have progressing slowly for the Houston Texans, fans rallied to show their support for having the NFL back in Houston. There were plenty of Houston Texans team apparel and Houston Texans memorabilia sold at games and in stores outside of the games, because fans were so excited about their new team. Texans have seen steady improvement over the past years, but still have yet to make it to a championship or Super Bowl. In 2005, Dom Capers was fired along with the majority of his coaching staff. Gary Kubiak was hired to replace Capers, and led the team into a very controversial off season. They were assumed to draft Reggie Bush or Vince Young, but when it was all said and done, they shocked everyone by acquiring Mario Williams instead of either of the first two picks. 2006, 2007 and 2008 were mediocre seasons for the Houston Texans, although fan support has gained momentum and so has the success of the team considering their talent and a first time playoff appearance.


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