The Houston Texans and the Dichotomous Endeavor

So a friend asked me to describe the Texans year in one word after the Week 17 win over Jacksonville and I could not think of one. Of course if I had several words it would be easy. Just look at some of my previous articles and I think they can somewhat describe how the year was progressing for the Texans. But to put the season into one word is very difficult. I realize it is hard to describe a lot of teams in one word, but it would be pretty easy for most of the playoff teams. 

Like:

The Steelers = Tough.  That defense is bruising. 

The Saints = Driven.  Drew Brees will never let his team rest despite them winning the super bowl last year. 

The Patriots = Brady.  Nuff said.

The Seahawks = …..unfreakingbelievable sounds good for them.

Among others.

But for the life of me, I could not think of one word to sum up the Texans' season. I think the reason is because the season was this huge opposite clashing dichotomy that kind of had a Jekyll and Hyde quality that makes the season hard to explain.

Starting at the beginning with the win over the Colts where the Texans smoked the Colts 34-24 by rushing for over 230 yards and then beating the Redskins in Week 2 after overcoming a huge deficit and winning in overtime. They then proceeded to get to 4-2 going into their bye week and felt pretty good......until they went 2-8 to finish the season, completely one of the most dichotomous seasons that I can remember in recent history. In the first half of the season, the Texans were one of the best teams in the league while in the second half they were arguably the very worst.

The Texans offense compared to their defense is THE DEFINITION of dichotomy. The Texans were ranked 3^rd in total offense while being 30^th in total defense. Matt Schaub is 5^th in the league in passing and Arian Foster and Andre Johnson lead the league in rushing and receiving yards per game, respectively while the defense came about 250 yards from setting an NFL record in passing yards given up in one season. And to add insult to injury, they won their last game probably saving Gary Kubiak's job and moved themselves up at least three draft spots and out of the top 10 draft picks.....great.

In almost every game this year, the offensive and defensive dichotomy reared it's beautifully ugly head, which is leading me to a word I think does describe the Texans. No the word is not disappointing or sad. I wanted to say laughable or hellarious (which is a word I created to define the show “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), but those just do not fit.  The word is nothing funny or epic or philosophical, it is just a word that I heard a bunch in my Biology and Ecology classes I took in school and a word I mentioned several times looking back at the article; Dichotomy.

2010 Houston Texans, thy name be dichotomy. I would also like to ask you, my awesome readers and subscribers, how would you describe the 2010 Houston Texans in one word. I would be interested to see your words and if you can come up with anything witty or clever. Haus out.