(AP Photo/Dave J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews for this season are here)

Jets 24 Texans 7

Well, as one salty high school football coach used to put it, "That went over about as well as a fart in church!"

In a home opener that was arguably as bad as the one in the their disastrous 2-14 Year Four season, the Texans had their collective ass kicked by a Jets team that was led by a rookie coach and QB. The Jets defensive front manhandled the Texans’ offensive line, which is supposed to be one of the team’s strengths.

Key tip of the day: Don’t even think about listening to sports talk radio shows in Houston this coming week.

The reality of early-season games such as this is that the Texans (0-1) probably aren’t as bad as they looked and the Jets (1-0) are probably not as good as the Texans helped make them look.

However, what should concern Texans owner Bob McNair is that Head Coach Gary Kubiak and his supposedly experienced and top-notch staff were clearly out-coached in preparation for the game and in making adjustments during the game. To his credit, Kubiak admitted as much during his post-game interview. But coming in his fourth season as a head coach, these types of debacles have to be wearing thin on even the extraordinarily patient McNair. And let’s face it, despite their reasonably respectable 8-8 record last season, the Texans were only 3-7 going into their 11th game on November 24th.

The Texans face the Tennessee Titans (0-1) next Sunday in Nashville. Anyone who watched any of the Texans-Jets game already know the Titans’ defensive game plan.

Houston Cougars 45 Oklahoma State 35

As I noted several times last season, the Houston Cougars (2-0) under second-year coach Kevin Sumlin are an endearing and fascinating team to follow. Thus, although the Coogs were a 16-point underdog at fifth-ranked Oklahoma State (1-1) on Saturday, anyone who has followed the Cougars under Coach Sumlin was not shocked (pleasantly surprised, yes) that Houston pulled off the upset of the Cowboys.

Behind third-year QB Case Keenum, Houston sports one of the best offenses in the country. Oklahoma State eventually figured out how to slow it down a bit in the 2nd half, but they were never able to stop it. Keenum throws the screen pass better than any college QB that I’ve seen in years — his 32-yard TD pass to WR/Sprinter Tyron Carrier on a middle-screen play just before the half against OSU will be used by offensive coaches around the country for the next several years as the quintessential example of how to execute that particular play.

The trick for the Cougars this season will be to figure out how their young defense — which lacks depth from several seasons of under-recruiting on the defensive side by previous head coach, Art Briles — can maintain the type of gritty effort that the unit displayed against OSU’s potent offense. UH defensive coordinator John Skladany is a master at getting the most out of undermanned defensive units (he was the DC for my friend Dan McCarney during Iowa State’s bowl run earlier this decade), but he will have his work cut out for him in the coming weeks. If the Coogs defensive unit can consistently play at the level it did against OSU, and the team can avoid injuries to key personnel, the Cougars are likely to be a top-20 team.

The Cougars take next Saturday off before taking on high-powered Texas Tech (2-0) at Robertson Stadium late on Saturday, September 26th. Now that is shaping up to be one wild affair.

Texas Longhorns 41 Wyoming 10

Earlier in Texas Head Coach Mack Brown’s tenure at UT, this is a game that the Horns (2-0) could have lost or at least sweated until the very end. An inexplicably bad offensive game plan, poor special teams play, a below-average 1st half performance by star QB Colt McCoy, only 30,000 or so fans watching the game in a far-off locale — those were all elements that could have led to an upset of the Longhorns under Brown five or six seasons ago.

But things are different for the Texas program now. Not only does Texas have as much NFL-caliber talent as any program in the country, the Longhorns of this part of Coach Brown’s era at Texas play rock-ribbed, tough defense. Accordingly, against the likes of Wyoming, Texas now can under-perform for a half on offense and still win the game going away.

Now, the Horns won’t want to risk that approach against Oklahoma, or even Texas Tech (2-0) next Saturday in an unusual early-season Big 12 Conference game. But my sense is that they won’t. If the Horns can find a consistent running back out of their four or five good prospects at that position, then this team will be very difficult to beat.

Texas Tech 55 Rice 10

Through two blowout losses, this season is shaping up to be a very difficult one for Rice (0-2), particularly after last season’s success.

Undecided at the QB position and working in a new offensive coordinator, even an Owl defense that held the potent Tech offense to 14 points in the 1st half wilted during the 2nd half as the Owl offense continued to struggle.

And things don’t get any easier for Rice over the next month. They face an angry Oklahoma State (1-1) team at Stillwater next Saturday, then they have consecutive home games against Vanderbilt (who gave LSU a good game last Saturday night in Baton Rouge), Tulsa (2-0) and Navy (1-1).

This could be a very long season for the Owls.

The Texas Aggies (1-0) were off on Saturday after last week’s blow-out win over a poor New Mexico team (0-2, scorched by Tulsa 44-10 on Saturday). The Aggies take on Utah State next Saturday at College Station.

Year Eight of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday with a home game against the Jets, so it’s time for my sixth annual preview of the team (previous annual previews are here).

Largely ignored amidst the inexplicable interest over the absurdly over-long NFL pre-season training camps is the harsh reality that the Texans have the worst record of any expansion franchise in the modern National Football League history.

As is usually the case in football, there are many reasons for the Texans’ poor record, not all of which are the fault of the Texans’ management and players. Nevertheless, Texans’ management bears a substantial responsibility for the relative futility of the team over its first seven years, so it’s helpful to review the team’s journey in evaluating whether the Texans are finally ready to make the leap to being in contention for the NFL playoffs.

The Texans were the toast of Houston for their first three seasons during which Houston football fans were simply happy to have an NFL team again and didn’t really have much in the way of expectations. Texans management and the local mainstream media trumpeted the party line that Texans were building a playoff contender "the right way" — that is through prudent drafting and development of young players while eschewing the temptation of short-term rewards provided by over-priced veterans who were on the downside of their careers. The progressively better won-loss records in the first three seasons (4-12, 5-11, and 7-9) — plus the drafting of young stars such as WR Andre Johnson, RB Dominack Davis (or whatever he ended up changing his name to) and CB Dunta Robinson — seemed to indicate that the Texans’ plan was working.

Unfortunately, those progressively better won-loss records distracted Texans management from recognizing the fact that the Texans’ overall personnel was not close to contending for an NFL playoff spot. The best evidence of that was that the Texans entered each of their first four seasons with the same two core problems — the Texans’ offensive line could not protect the quarterback and the Texans’ defensive front could not pressure the opposing team’s QB.

Former Texans GM Charlie Casserly never could solve the offensive and defensive line problems (remember LT Tony Boselli, the flirtation with LT Orlando Pace, and the thoroughly unimpressive DT Anthony Weaver?). The 2005 draft was an absolute disaster (DT Travis Johnson as the 15th pick in the first round?) and initial Texans head coach Dom Capers’ changes to the offensive and defensive systems between Years Three and Four proved equally disastrous. After the Texans limped home with a desultory 2-14 record in Year Four, Texans owner Bob McNair mercifully dispensed with Casserly and Capers.

Subsequently, McNair decided to blow up his original Texans management model and surprisingly hired Gary Kubiak, who promptly made (acquiesced to?) a whopper of a blunder in his first major personnel decision as Texans’ coach — retaining QB David Carr even though it was reasonably clear as early as before Year Three that Carr was unlikely to develop into an above-average NFL QB.

Kubiak — who is a quick study in evaluating talent — promptly soured on Carr during the early stages of Year Five, which was part of the reason why the Texans had one of the worst offenses in the NFL that season. As a result of enduring that Year Five offense, Kubiak arguably overpaid for QB Matt Schaub before Year Six and clearly overpaid for over-the-hill running back Ahman Green. Not much improved through 12 games of Year Six as even the local mainstream media cheerleaders were questioning whether Kubiak was the proper coach to right the Texans’ ship.

Then, the Texans showed some spark and won three of their last four games to finish with an 8-8 record for Year Six, the first non-losing record in franchise history. The Texans’ offense — even without Schaub and star WR Andre Johnson for five and seven games respectively — improved to 12th in the NFL in yards gained and 14th in points scored, by far the best finish of any Texans offense. That was enough to give the cheerleading local mainstream media and long-suffering Texans’ fan base hope that things might finally turn around for the franchise in Year Seven.

Unfortunately, Year Seven amounted to running-in-place for the Texans. A solid season-ending win over the Bears allowed the Texans to finish at 8-8 again, but the team did not contend for a playoff spot and suffered several demoralizing defeats. Given that the team had a 7-9 record after Year Three, a reasonable case could be made that not much progress had been made from the end of Year Three through Year Seven. The offense was better, but the defense was worse than it was after Year Three. Had the deck chairs simply been rearranged on the Texans’ Titanic?

On the other hand, several clear signs in Year Seven indicated that the Texans are headed in the right direction. The offensive line and the receiving corps were far-improved and have more depth than at any time in franchise history. Despite being somewhat brittle, Schaub showed the talent necessary to be a consistently above-average NFL QB. Likewise, RB Steve Slaton emerged as a game-breaking back who will only get better if another complementary back steps up from among a group of talented backs that the Texans have accumulated on their roster.

Moreover, although the Texans’ defense did not improve statistically last season, the Texans have a nucleus of young defensive players who — with proper coaching and sensible personnel adjustments — are likely to gel into a reasonably effective unit sometime over the next couple of seasons. Improvement in NFL defensive units generally gestates over several seasons as young players gain needed experience, so I expect the defense to improve under new defensive
coordinator Frank Bush, who is clearly a favorite of the players (unlike Kubiak’s prior DC, Richard Smith).

Although I’m still not sold that Kubiak is the coach to take the Texans to the playoffs, I have always been impressed by his willingness to recognize mistakes, cut losses and make changes. He does not seem to be burdened with the stubbornness that often undermines NFL head coaches. In fact, that characteristic was a big part of why Dom Capers failed as the first Texans head coach.

Continuity in coaching staffs and personnel are the most common elements of successful NFL teams. Accordingly, absent a total meltdown similar to Year Four, my sense is that the eternally patient McNair will continue to endure blunders such as the Ahman Green deal in the hope that maintaining stability will ultimately reward him with a consistent winner. McNair certainly deserves it given the stellar support that he has provided to the Texans football operation.

So, are the Texans ready to contend for a playoff spot this season? Hard to say given the lack of defensive improvement during Year Seven. As I noted several years ago in defending the Texans’ first-pick-in-the-draft selection of DE Mario Williams against almost universal mainstream media criticism, a common thread through NFL teams that take the step from mediocrity to playoff contention is that they find the right mix of defensive players that make it difficult for the opposition to mount a consistent rushing attack. The Texans have not found that mix yet, so playoff contention would appear to be a long-shot until they do.

However, given the high number of variables that play into a successful NFL season, picking NFL playoff teams is an extremely speculative endeavor. Almost all NFL playoff contenders are just a couple of key injuries away from the scrap heap. The Texans have accumulated enough talented football players on the offensive side of the football that they are in a position to seize the playoff opportunity if the variables tilt in their favor on the defensive side. But defensive improvement will likely be the key to whether this season is a breakthrough season or another disappointment. My sense is that the over/under for Texans’ wins this season is eight, the same as last season.

Now that the sports blogosphere is matured, there really is little reason to rely any longer on the mainstream media for Texans news and analysis. The Chronicle sportswriters provide extensive coverage of the Texans, but the coverage lacks meaningful insight. Far superior coverage and analysis is provided in Stephanie Stradley’s excellent blog, which she updates frequently, and  Lance Zerlein’s blog, which he updates several times a week. Moreover, the Houston Examiner’s Alan Burge does a much better job of covering the Texans than the Chronicle sportswriters. I will continue my tradition of providing a 2009 weekly local football review each Monday during the season.

Finally, the following Texans blogs also provide superior analysis to that in the local mainstream media: Texans Gab; Battle Red Blog; DGDB&D (for "Da Good, Da Bad & DeMeco"); In the Bullseye.com; and Houston Diehards.

This past Sunday’s edition of the Chronicle marked the beginning of what is arguably the most mind-numbing portion of the sporting year — the five-week period of media coverage of football practice prior to the start of the National Football League season in the second week of September.

Putting aside for a moment his delusions that the Stros actually have a legitimate chance of making the National League playoffs this season when 3/5th’s of their starting rotation are well-below NL-average pitchers, the Chron’s Richard Justice dusts off his Texans’ cheerleading garb and lays this piece of fluff on us:

At least we’ve gotten beyond the basic issues that smothered the Texans for so long. There should be few questions about the coach or general manager. Gary Kubiak and Rick Smith have done their jobs well.

They inherited a 2-14 mess three years ago and rebuilt it breathtakingly fast. To go from 2-14 to 8-8 in two off-seasons is an amazing accomplishment.

Of course, this is the same Richard Justice who was saying the following just last October (2008):

Wouldn’t you love Bob McNair to start holding people accountable? Wouldn’t you love it if he acted like he cares as much as all those people who write the newspaper and phone the talk shows?

Do you think he understands he’s why this football team stinks? In the end, he’s the guy in charge and every stinking loss starts with him. [.  .  .]

Coaching isn’t just drawing up a running play that works. Coaching is instilling the right mindset in a team.

It’s getting players to understand what’s important. Don’t think for a moment the Texans don’t care. They do.

Rosenfels cares. Chester Pitts and Ephraim Salaam and DeMeco Ryans and Johnson care.

Those mistakes aren’t a statement about how much they care. They’re a reflection that somewhere along the way, this organization has gotten way off track.

If it was one game, or one series of mistakes, that would be one thing. This is year after year of mistakes, of figuring out different ways to write the same ending.

In fact, what Justice is saying about the Texans now is quite similar to what he was saying about the Texans under the Casserly-Capers regime immediately before the disastrous 2-14 season in 2004:

The Texans have made good use of their honeymoon. They’ve drafted wisely and spent shrewdly on free agents. They’ve assembled a front office admired around the NFL. Their players seem to be quality people. [. . .]

The danger for them is that their greatest strength could become their greatest weakness. They’ve done so many things right and have built such a model operation that it’s impossible not to put expectations on a fast track. [. . .]

So far, it’s impossible not to be impressed with what the Texans have done. They are run as efficiently as any sports franchise I’ve ever been around.

Just before the start of training camp, Casserly gathered his employees and thanked them for all their hard work. Then he went down the list of different departments and explained some little thing each had done that made the team – and the organization – better.

That’s the kind of thing the people who run sports franchises almost never do, and it left every person who was mentioned proud to be associated with the Texans.[. . .]

Capers believes it’s vital to emphasize doing things right because "if you ever slip, you can never get it back."

So far, the Texans haven’t slipped in any significant way.

Meanwhile, the blogosphere continues to bail the Chronicle out. Stephanie Stradley, who pens the Texans Chick blog for the Chronicle, has just completed a series of blog posts (the first one is here and the final one with links to the other four posts is here) that provides more astute analysis of good information on the Texans than anything that I’ve ever read by the Chronicle sports staff. Another Chron blogger, Lance Zierlein, also does a better job of analyzing the NFL than any of the Chron sportswriters.

Given Stradley’s competence in regard to professional football, guess what Justice thinks of her?

It’s going to be a long NFL pre-season.

This really was not meant to be my "bash the Chronicle" week. I mean, really — the local newspaper already has enough problems.

But what else can one do when confronted with this blather from the Chronicle’s lead NFL columnist, John McClain?:

Let’s cut to the chase: The Texans should make the playoffs for the first time. We all know it.

The Texans are better than they’ve ever been. Their offense was terrific when Matt Schaub returned from his knee injury and won three of his last four starts. The Texans have got a better running game.

With Frank Bush as the new coordinator, the defense should improve dramatically with the addition of nine free agents and draft choices competing for playing time.

Just six months ago, this is what McClain was saying:

I picked the Texans to beat the Ravens by three. Many of you said, in so many words, that I was a moron to pick the Texans. I was. I’ve learned my lesson. After getting every pick right this season, I blew this one. I won’t make that mistake again this season.

After watching Sunday’s game against Baltimore, I think the Texans are fully capable of losing the rest of their games and finishing 3-13. It’s time to start preparing for the draft. Gary Kubiak’s third season is over.

The Texans are a joke, an embarrassment to themselves, the organization and to the city. They put on a wretched performance at Reliant Stadium on Sunday when they quit in the fourth quarter and allowed the Ravens to humiliate them 41-13.

Under the circumstances, I believe this was the worst loss in team history. A victory at home over a team with a rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback would have made them 4-5. Now they’re 3-6 with road games against Indianapolis and Cleveland, two more struggling teams that’ll be licking their chops at the prospects of playing such a putrid team.

The Texans were horrible on offense and terrible on defense. Everyone on the team — indeed, everybody in the organization — should be embarrassed to say they participated in or witnessed this debacle.

Anyway, you saw what I saw. There’s nothing left for me to say about this abomination  .  .  .

Despite McClain’s despair, the Texans somehow pulled themselves together to finish 8-8 on the season.

Of course, the above outburst came over a year after McClain had breathlessly anointed Coach Kubiak as the second coming of Bill Walsh.

And that came after years of McClain columns in which he extolled how former Texans GM Charlie Casserly and head coach Dom Capers were "building the Texans the right way." McClain quickly changed his tune when Casserly and Capers’ "effective building" resulted in a disastrous 2-14 record in the Texans’ fourth season.

Frankly, the Chronicle’s NFL citizen-bloggers Stephanie Stradley and Lance Zierlein are much more measured and analytical than McClain in their coverage of the NFL and the Texans.

Does anyone in Chronicle management even notice?