San Francisco 49ers

Five Reasons Getting Super Bowl LI is a Good Thing For Houston Even if You Hate Sports

As noted here yesterday, the NFL awarded Super Bowl LI to Houston. The game will be played at Reliant Stadium in February 2017. There are plenty of you out there who could care less about football and sports in general. Frankly, the Super Bowl is often anticlimactic as a sporting event, but it is st ... More >>

The Texans' 2013 Schedule Is Here!

In 2011, the Texans finally broke through with their first double-digit win season in franchise history. They took home the AFC South crown and beat the Cincinnati Bengals at home in a playoff game before losing on the road to the eventual AFC runner-up in the divisional round. In 2012, the Texans ... More >>

Last Night: Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo at Stafford Centre

Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo Stafford Centre April 17, 2013 If you grew up during a particular window of the early 1980s, there were certain things you couldn't escape: economic malaise, the San Francisco 49ers, and MTV. If you were an early enough adopter of Music Television, you were more than fam ... More >>

Joe Flacco Has A New Contract: Next Big Thing Or Next Cautionary Tale?

On December 16, the Baltimore Ravens lost their third game in a row, 34-17 to the Denver Broncos in Baltimore to drop to 9-5 on the season and virtually clinch a relatively ho-hum four seed in the AFC. On that day, their starting quarterback, Joe Flacco, completed 20 passes on 40 attempts for 254 l ... More >>

Please Welcome Our New Advice Columnist, the Geto Boys' Willie D

Rocks Off is so excited about this, we could just... well, we don't know what, but we're pretty damn excited. About a week ago, we got an email from Willie D of the Geto Boys offering his services as an advice columnist. No shit. It turns out that besides one of the most volatile MCs in Houston rap ... More >>

New Orleans Braces For Super Bowl XLVII Onslaught As Future Of The Game Is Debated

Excited tension hung heavy in the air in New Orleans on Monday evening as the coming Super Bowl XLVII super-storm of tourist dollars began to filter into town. Most streets downtown near convention center are already cordoned off. There are NFL banners blanketing the city. The Mercedes-Benz Superd ... More >>

Fan Fighting League! It's FFL Playoff Time! Falcons Fans Pummel 49er Fan (w/ VIDEO..and Pepper Spray!)

When it comes to playoff time in the NFL, we know tensions can run high. They especially run high when you root for one of the chokiest of choking dog home teams in recent history, and yes, I'm looking right at you, Atlanta. On the heels of the Falcons' most recent playoff collapse, a 28-24 home lo ... More >>

Pro Bowl 2013 More Like the No Show Bowl

The NFL's version of an All Star game has come under scrutiny in recent years by fans and players alike. Even Commissioner Goodell thinks it's becoming a waste of time, admitting, "We are going to either have to improve the quality of what we are doing in the Pro Bowl or consider other changes, or e ... More >>

Football! This Weekend's Best Bets, The Mea Culpa Edition

First, with Christmas now in the books, I'd like to issue an apology. If you were paralyzed financially this holiday season, unable to buy gifts, and woefully relegated to giving your loved ones esoteric, abstract gifts like "more personal time" or crappy pieces of handmade artwork, it probably mean ... More >>

Football! This Weekend's Best Bets

Before we get to this week's picks, a quick stock check on the "Houston Texans win the Super Bowl" prop bet. What exactly did the Patriots' 42-14 beatdown of our hometown team do to their wagering street cred? Well, prior to the game, the Texans and the Patriots were tied as the odds-on favorites t ... More >>

Football! This Weekend's Best Bets, And A Story Of The Worst Gambling Beat Ever

File this one under "Worst Beats Ever": According to a story on businessinsider.com, there was a bettor last week (and the story has a picture of the ticket, so I tend to believe it's true) who fired on an eight-team parlay of NFL games on Sunday, risking $50 to win $18,441. The first seven games ... More >>

Clueless In Seattle: Twitter, Sportsbooks, And Obese Detroit Lions Fans Go Insane After Monday Night Football (w/ VIDEO)

The NFL's replacement referees have made plenty of egregious errors during the first three weeks of the regular season. They nearly handed the Seahawks a win in Week One by giving them an extra time out in their game with Arizona. They extended last Monday's game between the Broncos and the Falcons ... More >>

2012: Year of the Texans

Assessing all their strengths and weaknesses, we could be looking at a repeat or better.

Texans-Saints: 4 Winners, 4 Losers (The Trindon Holliday Conundrum Edition)

If you are a sports couch potato (and if you are reading this, chances are that is the case), Saturday night was one of those nights that we probably take for granted all of the technological advances that allow us to consume all of the fare on the sports buffet simultaneously. Picture if you will, ... More >>

Texans-Saints: Five Things To Watch

Every even-numbered year since I got into radio in 2007 (and perhaps even before that, I just wasn't paying attention), the Houston Texans would travel east on I-10 in mid-August (actually, to be more accurate, they probably flew charter) to practice for the entire week against the New Orleans Saint ... More >>

Houston Chronicle Sports Goes Bleacher Report

The Houston Chronicle sports page is a sad shadow of what it used to be. Tons of talented writers have been laid off the past several years, or they have departed on their own because they just couldn't take it anymore. Many of the reporters left are having to double up on beats, like Joseph Duarte ... More >>

Houston Texans Roster-tology: My Latest 53-Man Roster Guess

After years of trying to get people's respect, trying to force people to sit up and notice how smart I am, I finally figured out what the secret is. (And I'm so smart that I'm about to share this secret with all of you at no charge!) The secret is this -- just describe whatever it is you do with th ... More >>

Texans 20, 49ers 9: Five Things We Learned (Including Linebacker Controversy?)

Check out the rest of our photos from this weekend's preseason Texans game. It was brief and incomplete, but Saturday offered the first glimpse of how the Texans (2-0) may stack up with the league's elite. Houston starters played for essentially a full half against the Niners, a team known for its ... More >>

Texans 26, Panthers 13: Five Things We Learned

It takes looking at just one final box score to show the relative importance, or lack thereof, with early preseason scores. Patriots 7, Saints 6. So the Texans' thorough road dismantling of a capable Carolina team may not signal much, particularly considering most first-teamers played less than a ... More >>

Getcho Popcorn Ready! Terrell Owens Is Back In Our Lives!

Last October, desperate for work, Terrell Owens held a workout in southern California to attempt to show NFL teams he was fully healed from an ACL injury that he suffered during the 2011 offseason. The only attendees at this spectacle were numerous television stations and cameramen, not a single NFL ... More >>

General Observations from the Free Press Summer Fest

See our slideshow of the food at Summer Fest. Observations while standing near a classic-style mosh pit to see The Descendants, as my friend Jay swigged Beam from a flask in one hand and deflated beach balls with a pocket knife in the other hand: There is probably not a better drinks program for ... More >>

The Betting Lines on the First 15 Texans Games Are Here!

Think you have a pretty good idea on how your favorite NFL team will do this upcoming season? More importantly, does your "pretty good idea" differ drastically from the super-early predictions the experts have forecasted for your squad? If so, the gambling gods have given themselves you another way ... More >>

Top 5 Liars in College Football History -- A List Dedicated to Bobby Petrino

Fired and liars rhyme. Just sayin'. This week, Bobby Petrino, a married father of four, was canned from his gig as head football coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks. As Hair Balls previously rapped about, Petrino was let go for lying about his motorcycle accident, his extramarital affair with a fello ... More >>

Houston Texans Grieving Process 3.0: At Least We're Not This 49er Fan

It's been a couple weeks, but perhaps some of you are still smarting from the Texans' loss to the Ravens ending their two-game playoff run. As I expressed from the day after that game, there are lots of ways to cope with a loss, but to me the best way is taking some semblance of pleasure in the pai ... More >>

Ravens 20, Texans 13: Historic Season Ends From Self-Inflicted Wounds

Looking ahead to the fall, finally​In the big picture, the Texans were playing with house money. With little playoff experience and on a third-string rookie quarterback, this shouldn't rank high on the list of Houston football collapses. This wasn't the Oilers in Denver and Buffalo, circa 199 ... More >>

30th Anniversary of "The Catch": 5 Other Great Catches in Sports

Sorry, Everson Walls: It's not your day.​Thirty years ago today, Dallas Cowboy haters -- in other words, every right-thinking person in the world -- rejoiced when Dwight Clark of the San Francisco 49ers made what has gone down in history as The Catch to put the dagger in the Cowboys' title hop ... More >>

Texans, Pats & Tebow: This Weekend's Best Bets, NFL Edition

God, let these picks come through​Witness the go-to move for a blog contributor who is technically on vacation but still likes to keep his commitment of five posts a week to his freelance employer because he loves them and loves money. Not one, but TWO posts worth of football predictions! To ... More >>

Merry Christmas! This Weekend's Football Best Bets

Santa's offering up some money-line action​Before I get into this weekend's best bets, a couple paragraphs on the Texans' 19-16 loss to the Colts last night: Was that officiating crew terrible last night? Yes. But good lord, I've never seen a bigger bunch of whiny babies than Texan fans last ... More >>

Football! This Weekend's Best Bets

The Flacco Factor: Always keep it in mind​It's the first weekend of football in November. In college football, this means we get into nut-cutting time, weekends that completely weed out the real championship contenders. This weekend includes a quasi-final four in the SEC with the huge LSU- Ala ... More >>

Five Great Coaches Fights, In Honor Of Jim Harbaugh And Jim Schwartz

The silly ritual of the coaches' post-game handshake got taken to a new level Sunday when the odious Jon Harbaugh celebrated his 49ers victory a little too enthusiastically while shaking the hand of Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz. Schwartz took after him, entertainingly. It didn't escalate to fi ... More >>

Texans-Ravens: Four Winners, Four Losers

It just feels like home to the Texans' ox.​Sometimes it's good to shake things up a little bit. We sit here every Sunday night for the last three football seasons and it feels like invariably we wind up saying the same thing -- "same ol' Texans." So this week, I took a trip to Chicago, and wa ... More >>

Football! This Weekend's Best Bets, A Salute To TV Season Premieres

DWTS = this week's Philly-Giants game?​Television fascinates me. It seems like a new station pops up onto my channel grid every day to the point where I'm actually a little disappointed I haven't been approached by anyone to televise the Sean Network. I mean, doesn't everyone have their own ne ... More >>

The New Normal

The Texans start operating like a bona fide NFL team.

2011 NFL Draft -- Live Blog

I am not an NFL Draft expert. How's that for unbridled confidence? Right out of the shoot, in a live blog for the NFL Draft, a host of a sports talk show is admitting that he's not an expert at something sports related, let alone the thing at which he's about to live blog. If you're looking for l ... More >>

The Jim Harbaugh Situation -- It's Over (3 Winners, 3 Losers)

Jim Harbaugh: All that?​I'll go ahead and say it -- what's the big deal about Jim Harbaugh? Sure, I understand that he took Stanford to never before seen (by Stanford) heights of winning 12 games including a BCS bowl. I understand that he transformed the identity of the team in the process, t ... More >>

One Guy's Thoughts On The Sports Year: 25 Things To Remember

So with the end of the year fast approaching, I thought I would take some time to revisit some of the highlights, and lowlights, of this past sports year. Your list is probably different, but these are the things that caught my attention this year. maxim.com Thanks for everything, Jenn​1. ... More >>

Five Memorable Athlete-Musician Hookups

​In a few hours, Carrie Underwood will be onstage at Toyota Center. Besides being an all-around American girl who will mess you up if you cheat on her, Underwood once dated Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and married Mike Fisher of the Ottawa Senators back in July. That's right, a hockey ... More >>

Dallas Cowboys: America's Most Popular Team, To America's Discredit

Dallas Cowboys: America has no taste​The Neilsen Company, the people who give you TV ratings, have done an extensive study on how popular various NFL teams are.According to the Wall Street Journal, the study examined "each team's local and national TV rankings, how often they're mentioned on the I ... More >>

Game Time: Inside The Mind Of The Houston Texans Fan

​Pretty much every social instinct I employ comes from George Costanza of Seinfeld fame.  (... and yes, the fact that it's been 11-plus years since the Seinfeld finale means I officially have to remind people who George Costanza was.)*"Whatever your instincts tell you to do, do the opposite." ... More >>

Tuesday Morning Quarterbacking: Really? That Good?

"That's as good a win as I've ever been around," Gary Kubiak said Sunday after the Texans 24-21 win over the Green Bay Packers. This probably explains why the Texans are a crappy team. Gary Kubiak was John Elway's backup on the day of The Drive, one of the greatest games in NFL playoff histor ... More >>

John Royal's NFL Power Rankings

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week 17: Are the Texans Half Empty or Half Full of It?

John Royal's Top Twenty Sports Moments of 2007, Part Two

John Royal's NFL Picks, Week Seven: Sorry, Mario. Even If Vince Young Doesn't Play, It's Gonna Be a Tough One.

John Royal’s NFL Picks, Week Five: Sports Writers Are Athletes Too…

John Royal's NFL Picks, Week Four: Betting on the Houston Texans. What? Why Are You Surprised?

John Royal's NFL Picks: Week Two

2007 NFL Preview, Take Two

Trading Spaces: Mock Draft Version 4.0

Idol Chatter