When we have said the Houston Texans franchise is a joke, we didn’t mean it literally.
Turns out our jokes, and we have plenty, aren’t as funny as the reality.
Comedian Barry Laminack and I planned a skit that included scenes of Cal McNair playing checkers while Bill Belichick was playing chess, and the Texans CEO engaged with an Etch A Sketch during an important meeting.
Ha. Ha.
As hilarious at Laminack’s bits are, I’m not sure he could top the behind-the-scenes story former Texans quarterback Sage Rosenfels told on the “Pass It Down” podcast.
Rosenfels recalled asking fellow QB David Carr about McNair’s role with his daddy’s team back in 2006.
Carr told him that he had recently left son-of-Bob’s office, where McNair was sitting on the floor in an unfurnished space save for a large television that he was playing video games on.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
This is who is running your Houston Texans, ladies and gentlemen.
Son-of-Bob is the second name on the organizational chart, beneath his mama Janice McNair, the franchise’s co-founder and senior chair.
Jack Easterby, executive vice president of football operations, is listed fourth, behind the McNairs and newly hired general manager Nick Caserio.
Since Easterby was the one who hired Caserio, that ranking is more for appearances sake. Wink-wink.
Haha. Haha. Haha.
If you’re in the mood for some pure, uncut comedy, go online and checkout the video clips of Easterby preaching the Gospel with a Larry the Cable Guy flair. That’s funny right there.
The ridicule abounds.
Texas fans are digging deep these days, taking old sermons from Easterby, whose entry into the NFL was as a team chaplain, and using them as evidence that he has no business running an NFL team.
Lord knows, that is unfortunate.
Easterby could not have imagined that he would one day be entrusted with an executive level position for an NFL franchise, and people would unearth cringe-worthy speeches where in one he wonders if Jesus did a Los Angeles street gang dance across the Sea of Galilee.
Tee. Hee.
Bill Belichick said he never imagined Easterby being involved in the Patriots’ football business because he isn’t a football personnel guy. Six years with the team, and he was listed as the character coach.
The first time I met Easterby, recognizing that he had no meaningful football knowledge to offer, I asked him about faith and religion … his area of expertise.
So, an NFL team’s major decisions are being made by a guy who allegedly didn’t have the wherewithal to buy office future to hide that he wasn’t working, and an evangelist.
This would make for a good logline for a television sitcom proposal.
Throw in a rookie head coach, who is eligible for social security, and a disgruntled star quarterback, who wants out of this crappy show, and this could sell.
Unrealistic, sure, but hilarious.
Should the pilot begin with the old man playing videogames or the Crip-Walking preacher?
I’m just trying to decide if the conversation where the coach begs the quarterback to stay with the dysfunctional organization would be funnier if taped before a live studio audience or accompanied by a laugh track.
Those of you who see this TV show with the quarterback as the villain don’t understand comedy.
If you’re looking for a bad guy in this story and somehow land on Deshaun Watson, you need to increase your quarantine level to Defcon 1: NO OUTSIDE COMMUNICATION.
The nuclear war on your brain cells has already started, and you are losing.
I surmise that Texans fandom can be like a degenerative brain disease, but from among Cal McNair, Jack Easterby and Deshaun Watson, how can you choose Door No. 3 for your wrath?
That’s not at all funny.
The Texans quarterback doesn’t tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of ambition every day, so don’t compare your 9-to-5 to his.
Watson, who is on vacation by the way, has been a model teammate and citizen.
He is uniquely talented — there are perhaps four people on the planet better at what he does — and he has shown where his loyalty lies.
Remember that time he took a 12-hour bus ride to a game in Florida because a collapsed lung made it unsafe for him to fly? The broken rib he played with that weekend was a minor, secondary condition.
L … O … L?
Nah, none of that reality makes it into my script.
Actually, it will be better if the hot shot quarterback is traded and the team brought in a lesser talent, a pretty boy Nuke Laloosh-like rookie and an old quarterback with a Ryan “Fitzy Cent” Fitzpatrick beard to groom him.
Now, that’s funny right there.
Jerome.Solomon@chron.com
Twitter.com/JeromeSolomon
