When it came to the Houston Oilers, Bud Adams only thought of himself.
In the late 1980s, Adams demanded renovations to the Astrodome, or else he would be moving the team to Jacksonville. After a bond election, which Harris County residents had to pay off for the next 30 years, Adams got his upgrades to the Eighth Wonder of the World.
However, it wouldn’t stop Adams from moving the Oilers. In 1995, Adams wanted a brand new stadium, not even 10 years after putting Harris County voters on the hook to upgrade the Astrodome. Adams got mad, shopped the Oilers once again, and ultimately announced the team’s departure for Nashville in 1998.
The crowds at the Astrodome were sparse in 1996. Though the Oilers started 5-2, Houston sports fans were incensed; they didn’t care. Even local media knew who to please and allegedly aired Houston Rockets preseason games ahead of Oilers games. Adams had made such a mess out of the situation that the league and the city of Houston reached an agreement to let the Oilers out of their Astrodome lease a year early, which is why the team moved to Tennessee in 1997.
As late as a 2012 interview with the Houston Chronicle, Houston Texans chairman and CEO Cal McNair couldn’t understand why Houston sports fans reviled Adams.
“It was interesting because the fans loved the team, but for whatever reason, they didn’t love the owner,” McNair said. “In this case, the fans love the team and the fans love the owner. I know Bud Adams, and he’s a nice guy. I don’t know exactly what he did to get people mad at him.”
This tone-deafness is precisely why the Texans are in the trouble they are in nine years later.
Jim Mora, coach of the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts, said that if you listen too much to the fans, you end up sitting in the stands with them. McNair can’t reasonably acquiesce every fan request, whether expressed individually or collectively.
Texans fans have zeroed in on executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby as the problem that ails the franchise. Of course, these were the same people who said Bill O’Brien, who won the most AFC South titles in club history, was the problem. Understandably, Houston sports fans just wanted to see their pro football team win, and whoever wasn’t getting the job done was the problem.
Strange coincidences have occurred since the introduction of Easterby into the franchise, and the fans and media can’t help but notice them. And are fans actually over the target when Andre Johnson, Mr. Texan, calls out Easterby as the problem?
Johnson isn’t a fan in the stands; he is actually former coaching/front office/scouting personnel that left the team in August 2020 after spending a year in his utility role. Of all the angry tweets about Easterby, Johnson’s proscribing carries the most weight.
One could argue that Deshaun Watson is the greatest Houston quarterback since the late Steve McNair, but the former Oilers first-round pick never developed as a starter while in Houston, which makes Watson’s comparisons to Warren Moon all the more apt. Houston sports fans know Watson can throw a ball through a car wash and not get it wet. They also know he can make plays with his feet and catalyze the team to pull out improbable wins. For the first time since the Texans’ 2002 inception, they have their franchise quarterback.
And, for whatever reasons, Watson is upset. When did it start? Moments after McNair hired Nick Caserio as general manager. Who is Caserio friends with going back to the New England Patriots? Easterby.
Adams fired Bum Phillips, Jerry Glanville, and Jack Pardee, all playoff-winning coaches, because they weren’t getting the job done. Even Adams would have fired a former character coach, who meandered his way through the organization and allowed a playoff contender to finish 4-12 and fray the relationship with the star quarterback.
If anything, contrasted with Adams, McNair is too nice and not selfish enough, and fans are beginning to focus their indignation on the son of the man who brought the NFL back to the Bayou City.
Adams made a mess out of the NFL in Houston. He took the Oilers records, uniforms, and history and grafted it onto an expansion team, the Tennessee Titans. However, any time the Texans play the Buffalo Bills, or get into the playoffs, what is technically the Titans’ ignominy gets brought up in relation to the Texans.
McNair has a chance with Watson to memory hole the bad memories Adams left with Houston sports fans. If the Texans ever crack the NFL’s final four or even qualify for the Super Bowl, let alone with the thing, it will be much more difficult to compare the Texans and Oilers, Watson and Moon, Adams and McNair. If McNair doesn’t build around his franchise quarterback, he will be remembered as unfavorably as Adams.