Obligatory Hyperbolic Post About JJ Watt’s Greatness/Can The Texans Beat Dallas?

Legends will tell of this man long after he ceases to walk the Earth.

Throughout human history there have been tales of supermen accomplishing great deeds and performing fantastic feats. The ancient Greeks and Romans are notorious for their stories about Perseus, and Hercules. and countless other demigods that walked the realms of men and toed the line between Olympus and humanity. Logic dictates that these stories, fantastic as they may be, probably have some basis in fact. Maybe Hercules just happened to be the strongest guy anyone had ever seen and he picked up a few really heavy things. Stories pass around and a stone eventually turns into a mountain by virtue of tales being embellished hundreds of times over many years. It occurs to me that we are all living in the presence of a man for whom such legends don’t seem that far fetched. JJ Watt, modern day Hercules. Son of Gods and mortal men. Sent from on high to deliver the people of this sports hell-scape from the agony of awful football.

I believe I can say, without any argument from the sane among us, that JJ Watt single handedly won the game against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, as much as a Defensive End can win a game all on his own anyway. Disrupting the quarterback, hitting the quarterback, and finally deciding enough was enough and intercepting the quarterback and returning that interception 80 yards for a touchdown. I sit at this computer screen in awe of this young man and can’t help but declare him Superman.

It’s not often that men of his caliber come along. Once in a generation athletes that can turn a sport on its ear are rare. We’ve been lucky in Houston to have one before in Hakeem Olajuwon (One could argue that Earl Campbell and Nolan Ryan deserve that respect as well) a man who, despite his late start in the sport of basketball managed to become one of the fifty greatest players in the history of the game. JJ Watt is this type of player. Young Defensive Ends will look to him in the future as a model for how to play the game of football. Future generations will look at his highlights and ask how it was possible for a man of his size to do the things he can do. Consider yourself lucky that you get to bear witness to this human marvel every football Sunday. Don’t feel bad for skipping church to watch the Texans play because when you do you are watching one of God’s most perfect creatures do exactly what he was intended to do on this Earth, and what greater worship can you give to the Lord than to sit back and admire his best work?

Yes, one day, hundreds of years from now, on the desolate wasted plains of the post-apocalyptic United States people will sit around camp fires and listen to the stories about our modern day Hercules that did battle in giant colosseums in front of tens of thousands of adoring fans. The golden haired half-god that could overpower dozens of men at once, leap ten feet in the air, and run the 40 in 2.5 seconds without ever breaking a sweat. They will listen and they will marvel and they will wish they could have been here to see it. Appreciate it folks. Hercules won’t be back for a long time.

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In soccer they call it a Derby. In college it might have a snazzy nick-name and a corporate sponsor. The Astros and Rangers play for the Silver Boot trophy, but when the Texans meet the Cowboys this coming Sunday there won’t be very many scarves in the stands, no marching bands on the sidelines, and no gaudy trophy to lay claim on. The only thing the two NFL teams from Texas will be playing for on October 5th is a 1 in the Win column. Of course to the fans on either side of this game it means a little bit more than that. The game between these two teams is four years in the making, like a World Cup or a Presidential election, and pulls just as much weight as either of those events with those involved. Imagine if Argentina had won the World Cup in Brazil this summer…four uninterrupted years of one neighbor holding a trophy over the heads of another. The game between the Cowboys of (near) Dallas and the Texans of Houston could mean four more years of darkness if the right team doesn’t emerge victorious.

Can the Texans win? Sure. The Cowboys shellacked the Saints on Sunday night this last week, but the Cowboys have also been very inconsistent this season. If we see a focused Texans team that doesn’t make mistakes and forces turnovers, like the team we saw in games 1 and 2 this year, then we have a damn good shot of going into Arlington and stealing this game from the favored Cowboys. And if JJ Watt continues to morph into Captain America every Sunday afternoon and gets in Tony Romo’s face as much as he did RGIII and EJ Manuel then we should be on easy street…

There’s always a “but” though, isn’t there? If the Texans allow DeMarco Murray to get going like they allowed Rashad Jennings two weeks ago in New York then they will almost certainly have a repeat of that abysmal performance this week in Dallas. There really is no middle ground here. They have to play as close to flawless as they can because Dallas is just flat out better than they are when it comes to moving the football down the field to score. The Texans will have to score early and often and not get into a position where they have to play catch up.

Before the season I had this penciled in as an L for the Texans, but the blatant homerism in me just won’t allow me to pick the Cowboys over my team. My prediction? (Other than pain?)

Texans 23 Dallas 17