St. Louis Rams

Early Betting Lines On NFL Weeks 1 Through 16

It's always good to get in on something at the beginning, at the ground floor. In the world of sports wagering, for bettors equally long on hubris and illness (gambling is a sickness, my friends), some betting outlets realize that no time is too soon to put out lines on NFL games. The draft just en ... 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 >>

Arian Foster's Projected 2012 Workload: An Historical Perspective

"He can handle it, I know that. You never know how the season's gonna go, and what it's gonna take to win each week. We're giving Arian some breaks at practice during the course of the week, but he looks fine to me. He's holding up fine. He hasn't missed any time, other than the time we've given him ... More >>

The Texans Unleash Their Free Agency Assault...by Signing the Rams' Punter

The offseason started out just fine for the Texans, with the team inking star running back Arian Foster to a five-year, $40 million contract. Since then, other than the re-signing of center Chris Myers, it's been a depressing parade of one guy after another either leaving or being asked to leave. ... More >>

Forecasting the NFL Head Coach Guillotine

Your time here is done.​They call it "Black Monday." It's the day after the NFL regular season ends, when any still-employed head coach whose name has been remotely associated with the words "hot" and "seat" tiptoes cautiously into his office and hopes that there's not a box on his desk to pa ... More >>

NFL Week 17 Viewing Guide -- What in the Blue Hell Each Game Means

"College football has the best regular season of any sport, and the lack of a playoff is one big reason why." -- Bill Hancock, Executive Director, Bowl Cartel Championship Series That's my favorite inane argument against a college football playoff -- that somehow the existence of a playoff cheapens ... More >>

Texans Release Slaton, Promote Ogbonnaya

​In what seemed like an inevitability in the preseason, the Texans finally cut running back Steve Slaton from the roster. Slaton was occupying the fourth running back position for much of the preseason behind starter Arian Foster, Derrick Ward and second year player Ben Tate. He was even sound ... More >>

NFL Tells Teams They Better Stop Diving (w/ VIDEO)

Coming to the NFL​I never played professional (or college...or high school...) football, but as a fan of the game and as someone who covers it as my job, it would seem to me that faking an injury is about the most cowardly thing you can do. I bring this up because in the Monday night game a c ... More >>

2011 NFL Preview, Spoken In Wagering-ese

The betting window is open​I hope everyone who has had a chance to check out our Texans 2011 preview "The New Normal" has enjoyed it. Big ups to Monica Fuentes for coming up with the season-long interactive game card tracking Texans' results. You need to go check it out. If you haven't read ... More >>

NFL & College Football Best Bets -- How Ebenezer Scrooge Saved Me

Ebenezer in the house​I went to the Alley Theater last night and saw A Christmas Carol. Fantastic production and actually my first time ever seeing it in any venue, let alone the Alley. For the completely un-Christmased of you out there, Carol is a tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, a grumpy curmudge ... More >>

NFL & College Football -- Weekend's Best Bets

When it comes to college football, I'm not a staunch traditionalist. I believe the season is more compelling when the longtime powers are strong (Translation: Texas, Florida, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Miami all being mediocre is, to me, a bad thing.), and yet I picked Boise State before the season ... More >>

Houston Texans -- F the Cowboys (or #FDACOWBOYS on Twitter)

cutline​Not long ago, I got into a brief discussion on Twitter with another radio personality whom I am forbidden to name whose name I don't exactly recall. I don't remember the crux of the tweet-versation (something having to do with blogs and the inherent evil that blogs possess to anyone over ... More >>

Game Time: Texans Battle Titans Tonight In The Most Important Athletic Event In Our's Nation's History

​Ladies and gentlemen, I've been to Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together." -- Kent Brockman, Channel 6, Springfield (The Simpsons)If you are wondering what "this" was in that quote, it was the Bart Simpso ... More >>

The Five Best Super Bowl Movies

The Super Bowl is about more than just gorging ourselves on lite beer and fatty foods before calling in sick to work on Monday: it's about terrorism, and transsexualism, and the dread that comes from knowing your bookie is going to have your legs broken because Whisenhunt called for a meaningless 4 ... More >>

Don’t Forget Your Texans History

NFL Review, Week Four: Cowboys Lose, and Bitch

NFL Review, Week Three: Bad Challenges, Tricky Snaps and Playboy Bunnies

John Royal's NFL Power Rankings

NFL Review, Week Two: Another Call for the Texans to Play in the Dome

John Royal's NFL Power Rankings

John Royal’s NFL Season Picks

Hope for the Houston Texans?

Gary Kubiak and team search for their first winning season

Spygate Back in the News: Time for Another Look at the Patriots’ Illegal Looking?

Miss Cleo’s Fearless Forecast: Super Bowl XLIII Winner Revealed!

John Royal’s NFL Picks, Week 17: Betting Against the Texans for the Last Time (Till Next Year)

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week 15: Tomahawk Chop, Baby Jesus and One Grisly Neck Beard

Michael Vick Gets 23 Months. Too Bad He Didn’t Kill a Human.

John Royal's NFL Picks, Week 14: Longest. Season. Ever.

John Royal’s NFL Picks, Week 13: Rushing More Than Ricky Williams

John Royal’s NFL Picks, Week 12: Forget the Drumstick, Let’s Wing It

John Royal's NFL Picks, Week 11: Andre Johnson Is Back, But Take the Saints Anyway

John Royal’s NFL Picks, Week Ten: Georgia (the Country, Not the State) Loves the Texans

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week Ten: Openly Defying the Gods Since October 2007

John Royal's NFL Picks, Week Eight: Take the Texans. That's Right. The Texans.

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week Eight: Staring Zeus in the Eye, Daring Him to Flinch

Jason’s Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week Seven: No Light at the End of the Tunnel Just Yet

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 Pigheaded Pigskin Picks, Week Six: Loving and Hating the Cowboys

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week Six: Forget Dog Fighting. Parity Is the League’s Biggest Problem.

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?

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks, Week Four: Salma Hayek, the Green Bay Packers, Anna Kournikova and the Baltimore Ravens

John Royal's NFL Picks, Week Three: Colts, Chargers and Greeks

John Royal's NFL Picks: Week Two

Jason Friedman’s NFL Picks: Week Two

NFL Predictions

From Britney to U2: The 2007 NFL Preview

This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

Scoring the Super Bowl

NFL Films' music may be stirring, but these songs tell the real story of the big games

Playmaker

Houston's Bo Eason was among the NFL's toughest tacklers. But he takes his hardest hits in writing about his very intimate House of Pain.