Welcome to Earth

You probably don't need us to tell you this, but your Houston Texans lost to the Eagles yesterday 24-10. Things began with a bang, with the Texans then waxing mediocre for the remaining three quarters. Note: we said "mediocre," not "abysmal," so there is progress in the air. Those hoping for the playoffs, though, had better clean the tint off their glasses if they don't want to spend football season waylaid by disappointment.

Our on-site operative reports that "a fair amount of fans at the game were surprised at the outcome;" Houstonist tried to warn you otherwise, even if we were secretly hoping for the sizable upset. The harsh truth, though, is this: Mario is not quite ready, the line remains porous, without D Double the running game is anemic, and in case you didn't hear, that kid Reggie is no bust. What remains to be seen is if the Texans can get on solid enough ground to make us forget all this, or at least put up with it for the foreseeable future.

With the Colts, Redskins, and Dolphins coming up, it's high time we started measuring these Texans against themselves, instead of in terms of scoring and victory. If they can build on this one quarter of competitiveness, it'll be something to get behind — even if it's in a losing effort. Of course we'd all like to see this team win its division, but it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Plenty of other cities have losing football teams that they still respect, and that's probably the most realistic goal at this point. There's a lot of middle ground between 2-14 and the Super Bowl, and the majority of NFL fans get perfectly amped to stomp around on it for months on end.

Oh, and Vince? Brief appearance for the Titans, just long enough to log a pick that one writer compared to "a wounded quail."