Four days to Vince

Outside of the New England Patriots (no front-runner here; I've been a fan since the days of Jim Plunkett and Randy Vataha) and my fantasy team (I benched Reggie Bush this past Sunday, a metaphor for my season), the NFL regular season is something I can take or leave. The exceptions are games that hold a certain intrigue, either of greatness or something else: two undefeated teams meeting in late October, a match-up between an established All-Pro quarterback and up-and-comer (Peyton v. Carson last Thanksgiving, for instance) or a late-season divisional match between bitter rivals (the Giants and Cowboys this past Sunday).

Then there is this Sunday's match between the Tennessee Titans and the Houston Texans.

As all the world knows, last January first, the Houston Texans lost 17-14 to the San Francisco 49ers, enough for a 2-14 record, enough for the worst record in the league and the first pick in one of the most talent-rich drafts in years. At Buffalo Wild Wings, basically the pulse of the Houston sports scene, the reaction of the assembled Texas faithful was unashamed joy, for it had been assumed for months that, with the first pick in the draft, the Texans would select the All-Everything tailback from USC, Heisman trophy winner Reggie Bush.

But a few funny things happened on the way to the coronation . . .

The first was the Rose Bowl, aka the Vince Bowl, in which Texas quarterback (and, by the way, Houston native) Vince Young ran over, around and through a USC team thought by many to be the greatest of all time. This was followed by Young's decision to leave school early and enter the draft. This in turn was followed by a huge groundswell of support for drafting young and jettisoning the incumbent QB, the talented but perennially underperforming David Carr. Young all but begged to be drafted by his hometown team.

What happened then everyone knows. At the apparent urging of incoming head coach Gary Kubiak, the Texans stuck with Carr, deciding to pay him an eight million-dollar bonus rather than let him go. Then, in the far more controversial move, they decided to bypass Bush as well, in favor of project defensive end Mario Williams.

Enter bedlam.

Seventy-five percent of the way through the season, the results are here. Mario Williams, after struggling early, has been a serviceable and improving defensive player. Reggie Bush has been good if not great, and provided what may have been a breakout game: four touchdowns vs. the 49ers. Right now, the edge would go to Reggie, but not by much, my previous huffing and puffing notwithstanding.

But all of a sudden, this is not the comparison/contrast theme of the season.

All of a sudden, we are back to Vince v. David.

The Texans are 4-8. In Carr's last two games, the Texans are 1-1. Carr has zero touchdown passes. Last week, he managed somehow to throw for negative five yards (Astro-Girl asked: "Was he facing the wrong way?") and lose two fumbles--and this was the game the Texans won. The Texans two touchdowns were almost entirely the work of special teams; for both TDs combined, the Carr needed to drive a total of five yards. The word coming out of Reliant Park is of Quarterback Guru Kubiak admitting to himself that he sorely misjudged what Carr was capable of; the rumor is that the Texans may use what will once again be a high draft pick for whatever quarterback will be available (Brady Quinn? Troy Smith?), even if doing so would be a tacit admission that he (and apparently last year's on-the-way-out Charlie Casserly) made a terrible blunder by not selecting Vince Young.

How has Vince performed? He has won one more game that Carr has while starting three fewer. The past two weeks, using both his arm and legs, he led the Titans to two multiple-touchdown comebacks against the Giants and Colts. He became the first quarterback ever to defeat quarterback brothers on consecutive weekends (the Mannings, of course). He has picked up right where he left off in Pasadena, and become a human hi-light reel.

And oh, yes, Young has done all this while playing for the Tennessee Titans, aka the former Houston Oilers. If any team is the Texans' archenemy, it is the Titans, a fact based in the person of Bud Adams, the person so despised that Houston refused to build the Oilers a new playpen in the nineties, almost in the hopes that Adams would take his team elsewhere and allow the city to start fresh with an expansion team. Adams never misses an opportunity to stick it to his old hometown; rumor was, it was spite alone behind Adams's command to GM Floyd Reece to draft Young, despite head coach Jeff Fisher and offensive coordinator Norm Chow's preference for Matt Leinart. (No one in Houston will forget Adams actually flying Young into Houston for a press conference the day after the draft, the ultimate Screw You moment if ever there was.) It the rumor is true, this may turn out to be a classic case of the right thing done for the wrong reason, for at the moment, Young, Fisher, Chow and the Titans offense seem an ideal fit.

And. And this Sunday, Young and the Titans return to Houston--to his home town, to a sea of burnt-orange Longhorn jerseys, to tens of thousands of absolutely furious Texan fans--in order to face the Texans.



Occasionally, a football game has as many subplots as an episode of "Seinfeld," circa 1994. This game is one of them.