[Arky]

Originally Posted by chuck

This is all fairly entertaining, and I have to say that I'm enjoying the board's being more active than it has been in a long while.

Bob, I know you think Carr would have been a good player under different circumstances. I think that is crazy and I think that the facts clearly state otherwise. He didn't lack confidence, he lacked intelligence. And he never studied film. If you're an idiot who never watches tape you are not going to succeed in the NFL as a quarterback. He had several fresh starts in other places and could never get anywhere close to the field, even on quarterback starved teams.

I was born and raised in Houston. I am a fan of Houston pro football. What do you want me to do, change teams mid-life? Have a second team like you do? I'll do neither. But my fandom does not preclude me from making a sober appraisal of the franchise I follow. It sucks. Two playoff wins in twelve years. That is indefensible.

No, I no longer have season tickets. I'm pretty sure I mentioned my letting them go at the time. When it became clear that the owner doesn't care much about winning and the team is more interested in advertising and cheap jingoism than a football experience inside the stadium I realized that it is lunacy for me to travel internationally six times a year or whatever it was simply to watch a team whose leadership is brazenly disrespectful to its customers. And the lock-out was absolutely the last straw.

And I have absolutely no idea why you think I'm an Astros fan. We've talked about this, too. My esteem for Bob McNair is stratospheric compared to what I think about the current and former owners of the Astros, two slimy dickwads who conspired in a most cowardly way to steal fifty years of history from fans like you and me. No sir, I am no longer an Astros fan. I will admit that I do enjoy watching the team struggle and it pleases me that Luhnow is a league-wide pariah. You'll note that several of their recent free agent targets have turned the Astros down in order to sign less lucrative contracts with other clubs. No one with any real options wants to play for this group of frauds and that makes me happy.

On the other hand I want desperately for the Texans to win; I simply recognize that as currently organized they won't.

The truth is I am not nearly as invested in the team as I once was, both literally and otherwise. It's impossible to continue to be as emotionally tied in as I once was when the team underperforms for more than a decade. Also, I am now a part owner of a professional futbol team here and that takes up a great deal of my sports-related emotion. It's a very rewarding experience, actually. Not financially certainly, but in every other way it has been quite something.

Looking back, I always felt Carr needed a mentor, someone to guide him right from the get-go. Show him how to be a pro in the NFL. Show him in the film room what he needed to do to become a better - someone that knew what they were doing. I've forgotten who his QB coach was at the time but whoever he was, he did a terrible job with Carr. Instead, he was allowed to be the Golden Boy, the face and savior of the new franchise and along the way, he picked up bad habits that were never corrected.

Re: season tickets, I read a lot of Texans stuff on the internet. One thing I've noticed is that the fans who regard their "investment" as disposable income are a lot more at peace with what transpires on Sundays. Especially, when things aren't going well with the team......

Interesting that the joke-of-a-franchise Texans have your favor and the joke-of-a-franchise Astros do not.....