The Texans, like everything else about 2019, make no sense

The Texans are the most 2019-ass team in the NFL, and I can’t even be mad at them. They are confusing, simultaneously impossible to root against and incomprehensible to fully support. We’re a week removed from Deshaun Watson and Co. beating the Patriots. Now they’re getting torn up by Drew Lock in his second start for the Broncos.

Nothing makes sense. Down is up. The inconceivable is happening, yet somehow we all should have expected the Texans to be this much of a roller coaster. Welcome to 2019. What a world this is.

Please don’t confuse this with some sweeping indictment of the Texans. On any given day, they’ve shown an ability to beat any team in the NFL. They’ve also shown an ability to lose to any team in the NFL. Nobody typifies consistent inconsistency better than Houston, and seriously I feel for the fans. Living life on the precipice of excitement and agony might be exhilarating, but it’s also draining af.

A six-game sample of this team’s season says more than anything else, really:

The Texans beat ... the Patriots, Chiefs, and Raiders. Combined record: 25-14 (0.641)

The Texans lost to ... the Panthers, Colts, and Broncos. Combined record: 16-23 (0.410)

If you can say with any certainty that you know which Texans team will turn up when the playoffs roll around, then you’re either delusional or a liar. There’s no middle ground here. If you’re desperate to find something to hang your hat on, well, Houston is better at home than the road. The same can be said of a lot of teams, but the Texans have made this a way of life. This season they’re a 5-2 at home and a middling 3-3 away. Still not enough to say with any reliability whether their year will end well.

This is the heart of why I can identify with the Texans. Much like them, I’d say this was a solid 5-2 year at home so far. Personal life is pretty OK, no major gripes. Then outside these four walls, everything is a festering dumpster fire as if a genius at MIT found a way to light raw sewage on fire as it spewed from a sludge hose covering everything in poop napalm. Just when I think things might get better, another piece of news drags everything back into the hole where 2019 belongs.

When you lose to Lock and the Broncos after beating the Patriots on national TV, you will be compared to a flaming glob of poop napalm. I’m sorry but also deal with it.

I so desperately want you to be good, Houston. First off, it’s fun. Deep down, we all want to see the plucky 2002 expansion team crack the big one, because it helps break up just how stale the NFL feels sometimes. Secondly, we all fell in love with Deshaun Watson’s incredible play breakdowns at the podium that made him a football sweetheart, and it seems like every single week he’s doing something amazing that just makes football ... cool. And the NFL is so very rarely cool, we need to cherish players who make it like this. We believe in you, Houston.

Now, on to the rest of the NFL.

God, I love Gardner Minshew.

Everything might be a disaster right now in Jacksonville, but at least the Jaguars have some life at quarterback. If nothing else, it’s going to make the second half of The Good Place’s final season awesome.

The symmetry at the beginning of Colts vs. Buccaneers was a thing of beauty.

Yes, I know this is technically asymmetrical, but it doesn’t mean it’s still not beautiful. Like a Picasso, or seeing the Mona Lisa with an eye patch on. Let the record show, before I get some angry fans yelling, that the Bucs went on to win this game. Just appreciate that this is how the first 10 minutes of the game went.

The NFL should embrace ingenuity.

Ingenuity is the true spirit of America. Without it we wouldn’t have such things as deep-fried fairground candy bars, the personal computer, Elon Musk’s toaster-shaped super truck. Also, Tre’Davious White snagging for All-22 photos that blew on the field in an effort to get an edge.

Now, I’ve pored over the NFL rulebook as I write this, because that’s what my life has devolved into. There is nothing in the book which says a referee should remove a piece of paper that has blown onto the field. Trash collection is not a part of their duties. There are rules about if a foreign object touches a ball, or hits a Skycam — but nothing for this example.

To be fair, I don’t know the specific laws of Buffalo, New York, though it’s widely accepted that trash is a surrendered object, which is fair game. These All-22 photos were littered onto the field, and it’s my fervent believe that White should have been able to view them all he wants.

Of course, they probably didn’t help much because they’re just All-22 photos, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Ryan Tannehill is the unlikely feel-good story we never knew we needed.

Unless you’re a Titans fan, you probably have no idea how well Ryan Tannehill is playing.

1,993 yards, 73.4 completion percentage, 15 TD, 5 INT, 9.8 YPA, 118.5 QB rating.

Keep in mind that he’s only started seven games this season and thrown passes in eight. Extrapolated out to a full season, we’re looking at a 4,000-yard passing season with some of the best stats in the league, bar none. Seriously.

Tannehill’s 73.4 completion percentage is second in the NFL only to Drew Brees. (Min 100 passing attempts).

Tannehill’s 9.8 YPA is first in the NFL among all quarterbacks.

Tannehill’s 118.5 quarterback rating is first in the NFL among all quarterbacks.

While we’re getting wowed by some truly phenomenal feats in the league, Tannehill is chilling down in Nashville playing LEGENDARY football and it feels like almost nobody is noticing. Of those standout stats we really need to talk about that YPA.

Only 12 quarterbacks in NFL history have finished a season with a yard per pass number above 9.7 while attempting 100 passes or more, according to Pro Football Reference. It’s such a rare occurrence that it hasn’t happened in the league since 2000, when Kurt Warner finished with a YPA of 9.88. Prior to that? 1966.

Simply put, this combination of accuracy and deep passing simply doesn’t exist in the NFL anymore. It’s an utter anomaly, and yet here’s Ryan Tannehill — not Russell Wilson, or Drew Brees, or Tom Brady, or Patrick Mahomes — Ryan TANNEHILL who is making history. All while being a fill-in when most people thought Tennessee’s season was over. Now the Titans are surging in the AFC South and legitimately threatening the Texans.

It’s one of the best stories of the year, and everyone should be paying more attention.

And finally, the drink of the week.