Goodbye Bulls on Parade, Hello Hounds of Justice

For anyone who follows my twitter account (I’m sorry to all 1715 of you, by the way), you know that I was fully on board for a quarterback number one overall the moment Matt Schaub threw his 1,245th interception to end the 2013 season for the Texans. This continued for about a month and I stumped pretty openly for Teddy Bridgewater. But then the Super Bowl happened and I opened my eyes to a few things.

The NFC championship game between the Seahawks and Niners made me remember how I’m a defense first guy always. “Defense wins championships” is quite overused, but I’m still a believer in it. Therefore, after watching Seattle make maybe the greatest quarterback of all time look like Case Keenum on a 3rd and 17 the entire game, I officially flipped my support to Jadeveon Clowney, even if I didn’t let that be known until my “twitter avi challenge” game I do each year (threepeat, by the way).

Skipping to the actual point, when I flipped to Clowney in early February, I declared that I wanted Houston to say screw the early quarterback pick as “the guy” and just build up a stud defense this year and worry about the former later. It isn’t like this team is a one year fix or anything. I was all about focusing on things in the trenches, clearing the bad contracts off the books and making 2015 the year for a comeback. After this draft that saw Houston stick primarily to defense and the front seven, my wishes seem to have been heard.

Only those that can’t separate emotion from reality knew that Clowney was going to be the pick at number one overall. But plenty of us wanted nose tackle Louis Nix with the first pick of the second. When it didn’t happen, most of us were okay because we got a day one starter in guard Xavier Su’a-Filo. But when Nix just kept sliding, I began to wonder if there was a medical red flag that came back on his knee. Apparently not since Houston thought giving away their fifth round pick to move up and get him was worth it. Just like that, years of broken hearts on draft day about taking a nose tackle that weighed more than 255 pounds were finally remedied.

Add to this the addition of Jeoffrey Pagan and the Texans new front seven is going to have AFC South quarterbacks checking under their beds at night before game day.

Sure, I know the quarterback situation is still a giant question mark and a couple of the offensive picks got the reaction of a dog being shown a card trick from Texans fans, but as I said in the intro; this was never going to be a one year fix. However, they’ve decided to go forward with the defense being the face of the franchise and that’s a good thing. Said face doesn’t always have to be a quarterback.

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With this, I cringed today when I saw a few people declare that “The Bulls on Parade are back.” No, no, no, no,

NO!

This is a new era under a new regime and all of that idiocy left with

and

in my eyes. Therefore, I am personally suggesting a defensive name change, if there just has to be one.

As some may have learned by now, I’m a big time pro wrestling enthusiast of all eras. But something I really enjoy in the current product is the stable known as “The Shield.” They’re just ass kickers that say very little and just destroy everything in their way. In short; you don’t want them coming after you. So I had the resident Texans artist D-Texanz create this little idea that I had for a Texans theme in the visage of The Shield with their catch phrase “The Hounds of Justice”  about six weeks ago when I became convinced Clowney would be the pick:

I’ve noticed in the past few days, this artwork has gone viral and I’m hoping the nickname catches on. Regardless of how you feel about wrestling or “sports entertainment,” it’s difficult to deny The Hounds of Justice doesn’t sound better than the name of a Rage Against the Machine song from twenty years ago. But, to each their own. I’m not the head of their marketing department and if they want to keep running out the old under a regime that’s supposed to be turning the page on a new era, okay. But out with old, for me, and in with the new.

Now, if only we could replace that awful Clay Walker song with the theme for The Shield…

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