Posted on 04/29/2006 6:54:56 AM PDT by Dog Gone
On the surface, Houston sports fans reacted calmly Friday night to the Texans' decision to pass up Reggie Bush and Vince Young to select North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams with the first selection in today's NFL draft.
Sports bars across the city were crowded, but orderly. No one was playing demolition derby in the parking lots. Nobody was torching Texans merchandise on the grill. Nobody was scraping Texans bumper stickers from parked cars.
A good number of fans, however, either poured their anger and resentment into their computer terminals or their telephone handsets, flooding the city's two sports talk stations with anguished calls and sending bitterly worded messages to sports forums at www.chron.com.
"(The decision is) easily the most silly and stupid move I have ever seen in the history of Houston sports, and there have been many of them," Robert McKenzie said in an e-mail to the Chronicle. "(Texans owner) Bob McNair is a boob, and (coach) Gary Kubiak is a yes man, and how (general manager) Charley Casserly is still around I do not know."
At Griff's Sports Bar near downtown, owner Travis Adair was struggling to come to grips with the logic of the team picking Williams rather than trading the top pick and taking a chance that Williams would be available later.
"I don't understand how you pass up the highest-rated player ever to come into the draft," Adair said. "But let's say you take the defensive player. Why not draft him later? You take a defensive player, and you just increased his salary $2 million, $3 million. What is the point?"
Ryan Johnson of New Orleans was jumping up and down in frustration on the parking lot of a sports bar in the southwest part of the city.
"The Texans passed on Vince and Bush?" Johnson screamed. "They passed on them? They could have gotten Reggie Bush and passed on him? Let me ask you a question: Do the Texans have a clue?"
A few fans gave the Texans the benefit of the doubt, though.
"We finally have an organization that is being led by competent football minds," wrote Larry Volkening. "All those fans that are so disgusted with Vince or Reggie not being the pick that they no longer want their season tickets ... please set them on your doorstep. I will be by to pick them up."
On flagship station KILT (610 AM), which will broadcast live coverage today from the Texans' draft party at Reliant Stadium, talk show hosts Matt Jackson and Adam Wexler stayed on the air an extra hour to take calls from fans.
Both expressed skepticism about the decision, and news reader Adam Clanton deadpanned, "Coverage of the locals burning down the stadium will be heard tomorrow."
While Jackson and Wexler were generally calm as they talked with callers, KBME (790 AM) talk show host Carl Dukes on occasion sounded nearly as worked up as the dozens of callers who phoned — 99 percent of whom, Dukes said, were angry.
"People are frustrated, disappointed and disgusted," Dukes said. "If it wasn't going to be Vince, they expected it to be Reggie. And now that it's neither, people are sick to their stomachs."
"I think they're not looking out for what the fans really want," said fan Robert Cooper, 22. "We need a superstar to take us to the next level, and Bush would've done that."
The expected reaction in Houston...
Gee, I knew our president had sunk low in the polls, but I never thought the NFL would get into the act..
(SHEEEEEESH!!)
Sports Nuts really need to get a life.
It's one thing to follow and cheer on your favorite team. But to go into the rant mode????
Rant mode is common on NFL draft day.
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