Texans are finally winners

Let’s hear it for the Houston Texans! Before I go on, first this disclaimer: I am first and foremost a Denver Broncos fan. I have been and always shall be. More about that later. That being said, I am a fan of the Texans and have followed them from the start. I didn’t really get serious about the team until I moved to Texas six years ago and more so in the last three years here in the Houston area. When the team formed I often referred to them as Denver South because of all the players, coaches and administrators that the Texans picked up from the Broncos and Colorado schools. Coach Gary Kubiak is a former Broncos quarterback and assistant coach. Offensive coordinator Rick Dennison is a Colorado State graduate who played and coached for Denver. Center Chris Myers played for Denver and the Texans roster has four players from Colorado State and one from the University of Colorado. All that is to say I had good reason for following the Texans from the start, even loosely from a distance. I consider myself to be a hard core Texans fan, just a couple of notches below the Broncos. This year my teams have given me plenty of reasons to be excited. Both teams are on a tear and have overcome spectacular odds to win. Houston is, at the time of this writing 9-3 and has secured the team’s second winning season. For the first time since the Oilers left, Houstonians are talking NFL playoffs. At 9-3 the Texans are tied for first in the AFC and hold a two-game lead over the former Oilers (Tennessee Titans) in the South with four games to go. What is amazing about this is the team has done it with depth. Many key starters are out for the season or have missed several games due to injury. Mario Williams, Matt Schaub, Andre Johnson, Kasey Studdard and more have been sidelined by injury. Despite those significant hits, the Texans keep on winning. They have the best defense in the NFL and one of the best offenses. If it’s true that defenses win Super Bowls, then perhaps Houston is headed for the big one in February. Amazingly, it was only a year ago after the Texans underachieved their way to another lousy season that fans were calling – no, screaming – for Kubiak’s head to roll. This year he is nothing shy of a genius. You don’t take a team with so many key injuries and keep them winning like this. It defies conventional wisdom, but speaks well for the coaching staff. When you have a rookie, third-string quarterback leading your team while key pro bowlers sit bandaged on the sidelines and you continue to have this level of success, you know that something beyond the tangible is at work. The same can be said of the Broncos where Tim Tebow is proving to be the Chuck Norris of NFL quarterbacks despite having the skills of a toad stool (at least according to the so-called experts). His style is unconventional (i.e. sloppy) but the bottom line is he wins games. Love him or hate him, you cannot deny that he is a winner. A man of faith, he is a natural leader and a man of integrity. In NFL vernacular, they call what he has “intangible”. He has those qualities that you can’t teach or coach. It’s those very qualities that his detractors call his faults that keep defenses befuddled and the Broncos in the W column. I guess you could say those same intangible qualities are at work with the Texans. Some call it luck and others call it dumb luck but either way the wins keep coming and the success keeps building. You gotta love that! One of the things I’ve learned from the likes of Zig Ziglar and other motivational gurus is that success is a choice. How we plan, prepare and execute determines the outcome. Obviously with the Texans working plans B and C, there has been some very careful planning and preparation in order for the team to execute and win the way they are. That is the hallmark of teamwork, commitment and dedication. Losers don’t have that. Winners do. So, I say it again, how ’bout those Texans!