Houston Texans

Wednesday, 21 October 2009 - administrator

Franchise History

How it started
1997 - In 1997 Houston was passed up by the National Hockey League to bring a team to Houston. And for the first time since 1959, Houston was about to find itself without a professional sports team as Bud Adam, the owner of the Houston Oilers, was given final approval to move his team to Tennessee . Bob Ncnair, a business man, determined to bring a team to Houston founded the Houston NFL Holdings and saw hope when NFL Stadium Committee reported to Commissioner Paul Tagliabue the potential in Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Houston in the up coming years.

1998 – In March of 1998, NFL officially awarded Cleveland its expansion franchise, making it the 31st team in the NFL. NFL Commissioner Announced that the league would be likely to add a 32nd team to the NFL with the most likely cities being Los Angeles, Toronto, and Houston.

1999 – In March, the NFL owners voted and decided that Los Angeles would be the 32nd NFL expansion team contingent on the city being able to find adequate ownership and stadium plans in position by September. However, when September came, Los Angeles still did not have all their plans in place. In a final move to lure the league back, Los Angeles offered $540 million for the NFL franchise in the first week of October. Several days later, McNair’s Houston NFL Holdings proposed $700 million with a state of the art stadium. The NFL owners accepted Houston’s offer a couple days later and awarded McNair the 32nd franchise to Houston.

2000 – They hired the former General Manager of the Washington Redskins Charley Casserly as Executive Vice President and other team officials worked on the identity, logo and name. In September McNair made it official by unveiling the team logo in a celebration.

2001 – They hired the clubs first head coach Dom Capers. Dom spent a couple years as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers and the previous two as the defensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Jaguarss.

It’s Game Time
2002 – On September 8, 2002, the Texans opened their first franchise game at Reliant Stadium against the Dallas Cowboys. They shocked the Cowboys by defeating them 17-10 making them the second expansion team to win their first game. Texans lost their next five games before winning their first road game against the Jacksonville Jaguarss. They ended the season record of 4-12, but still considered it a success. Texans sent two players, Gary Walker and Aaron Glenn, to the Pro Bowl that year.

2003 – 2007 – For the next two seasons the Texans made steady progress. In 2003, it started very much like 2002. They defeated the Miami Dolphins as the underdog the first game of the season and ended the season 5-11, just one better then the year before, but the end of season overtime loss to the eventual Super Bowl Champions the New England Patriots gave them hope that they could compete at any level. The high hopes of the Texans were quickly put to silence in 2004 when they started the season 0-3, but came back to almost make the playoffs. However a devastating loss to the Cleveland Browns 22-14 stopped any hope. In 2005, the Texans had a devastating season finishing last in the league, but winning them the right to first draft pick in the next season. After ending the season with such a terrible record, the Texans went on to fire coach Dom Capers and most of the staff. In 2006 the Texans shocked the NFL nation by selecting North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams. Vince Young or Reggie Bush were the top favorite picks and fans were outraged that the Texans hadn’t made a better pick. However with Gary Kubiak as new head coach aboard and new draft picks, the Texans would end their first breakeven season 8-8. In 2007, with Matt Schaub as quarterback the Texans had a promising start with two consecutive victories. As the season progressed the team started to become plagued with injuries. The result was an 8-8 season, however, the Texans showed tremendous improvement having their best offense, average yard per play, total touchdowns, passing touchdowns and passing yards.

2008 – Present – The season ended very similar to the last season ending with 8-8.

Wide receiver Andre Johnson #80 of the Houston Texans comes down with a catch between defensive backs Nick Harper #20 (L) and Chris Hope #24 of the Tennessee Titans on December 14, 2008 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas. The Texans won 13-12.

Nickname

In 2000 Houston NFL announced there they had limited their teams choices to six teams: Apollos, Bobcats, Stallions, Texans, Torros, and Wildcatters. After several surveys were conducted they limited down to three names: Apollos, Stallions and Texans. Bob McNair had asked NFL owner of the Dallas Texans, who are now the Kansas City Cheifs, who gave him permission to use the team name.

Logos

The logo is a representation of bull’s head. The color design would split in such a way where it would resemble the flag of Texas, including the Lone Star, and the five points of which represent pride, courage, strength tradition and independence.