The Houston sports media. All of 'em. Every last stinkin' one of 'em. They're all a bunch of hypocritical homers that won't come out and say, "Ya know...I was wrong. I didn't have the slightest clue of what I was talking about. Here I am in the business of supposedly knowing what I'm talking about, and I didn't have a friggin' clue."
Back in 2006, the Houston Texans had the number one overall draft choice. First pick. Numero uno. Nobody else in the league could take a pick ahead of them. They could've had anybody. And who did they pick? They picked a nobody. An unheard of guy named Mario Williams. Granted, the guy was built like a greek god, standing at 6 ft. 5 inches tall and weighing 295 pounds. He was fast, quick, athletic and showed all the skills one would expect to see for a defensive lineman at the scouting combine. Yet, the scouting report on the dude was he was lazy. He took plays off. He had no heart. And the Texans took him anyway.
From the beginning...the VERY beginning...I decried this move...this pitiful pick for a team that had so many holes they should have called them the Houston Swiss Cheeses. They were just coming off a 2-14 season. I wanted them to pick Jay Cutler because...as I had predicted early on....David Carr was a bust of a bust of a bust. The smart pick...financially speaking...would have been to pick the hometown favorite, Vince Young. Talk about packing in the spectators. But, I digress.
For each year I blasted Williams for not being the playmaker a number one overall should be. He was hurt every year by one nagging injury after another. Instead of taking just 'plays' off, he wound up taking quarters, halves and even complete games off. Most of the time you couldn't find him on the stat sheet with a search warrant. And, every time I would blast him, the homers would screech and scream and belittle my take on this worthless piece of football crap. The media would say, 'Well, it's what he brings to the game that can't be counted on the stat sheet.' What a load of crap. I started calling him The Mistake, and One Minute Late Mario.
His best year was his second. In that year, where he played all 16 games (and supposedly 'hurt' during most of that time but was such a team player he went out there and gave it his all...cough cough...) he had 43 solo tackles, 16 assisted tackles for a total of 59, 14 sacks, 1 forced fumble and 4 passes defended. That's in sixteen games.
Mercifully for us Texans fans (or, at least those of us who KNEW what he really was), they let him go to the Buffalo Bills and they signed him for $100 million dollars. What a drastic and monumental joke.
Meanwhile, the Texans took a guy in the first round last year at the 11th pick named J.J. Watt. Like Williams, he stands 6 ft. 5 inches tall and weighs 295 pounds. The main thing about him on the scouting report was that he had a diesel engine for a heart that didn't know how to quit and that he gave 100% on every down. I said to myself, "We'll see."
Now, in this his only second year, J.J. Watt is being mentioned in the same breath as Reggie White, Bruce Smith and Michael Strahan. Compare his second year stats after only 14 games with those of 'Super' Mario above. Watt, in 14 games, has registered 62 solo tackles, 12 assisted tackles for a total of 74, 19.5 sacks (the record for one season is Michael Strahan's 22.5, so with 2 more games to go, Watt has a chance of meeting or exceeding it), 3 forced fumbles and 15 passes defended.
In 14 games this season (in which he was 'hurt' for the first few weeks) the great and glorious one-hundred million dollar man has the following: 32 solo tackles (30 less than Watt), 9 assisted tackles (3 less than Watt) for a total of 41 (33 less than Watt), 10.5 sacks (9 less than Watt), 2 forced fumbles (1 less than Watt) and 3 passes defended (12 less than Watt).
And guess what you hear on Houston's sports media when it comes to Williams and their constant orgasms over him when he was here? Crickets. Crickets. And more crickets. All I want is just one of 'em...only one of 'em...to have the cajones to say on the air or in print..."Ya know...I was wrong. Williams has no heart, he's lazy and when you compare him to J.J.Watt...well, you just can't. For a number one overall, the dude is a bust and Buffalo got taken to the cleaners." But, I could live a million lifetimes and not hear that. Because they're a bunch of hypocritical yahoos who think they know it all. Well, I don't know it all. But I sure pegged Williams when he came out the gate. The proof is in the pudding.
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