Please indulge me one last Texans-related post for the week.

John McClain, the lead Chronicle sportswriter covering the Texans, condemned this past Sunday’s Texans’ loss as the worst in the team’s history.

Now that normally wouldn’t be all that unusual. I mean, the Texans really did stink up Reliant Stadium.

However, McClain said the same thing about the Texans’ loss to the Ravens just 10.5 months ago.

But even that wouldn’t be so absurd except that, in between those two "worst" games, McClain generally dished up this type of blather about how good the Texans are poised to be this season.

I mean really, with far superior blogosphere sources such as Stepanie Stradley, Lance Zerlein and Alan Burge around to provide coverage of the Texans, does anyone take McClain seriously anymore?

(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.