2012 was good to Johnny Manziel, and 2013 is off to a phenomenal start. Of course, there was the 41-13 trouncing of Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl on January 4, where Manziel piled up roughly a billion total yards. But there's been so much more. Lucrative casino trips, lovely ladies, and Mardi Gras! ... More >>
Over the last four weeks of the regular season, despite having a significant carrot in front of them in the form of home field advantage throughout the playoffs for which to play, the Houston Texans looked like they were lacking in direction, almost lifeless at times. How that could be, I have no ... More >>
A few years ago during the dog days of summer, in an attempt to fill air time with not much else going on, ESPN came up with this gimmick segment called "Who's Now?" Basically, they matched up various sports figures in a bracket style tournament and then had random celebrities (sports and Hollywood) ... More >>
Dumbfounding special teams miscues. A 70-yard touchdown over the top on 3rd-and-23. Two inexplicable Matt Schaub interceptions with the offense rolling. Four offsides penalties. Two timeouts wasted on a baffling challenge and an indecisive fourth down. These are Gary Kubiak's Houston Texans. In the ... More >>
"I don't understand Tony Romo being called the most overrated player in the NFL. If anything, he's the most underrated player in the NFL." -- Troy Aikman during Sunday's telecast of Cowboys-Giants I'm not sure what's crazier, that Troy Aikman gets paid several hundreds of thousands of dollars for i ... More >>
It may be only one loss, but the trend lines are concerning. For a second straight week, the Texans (5-1) were outplayed in a handful of key areas, most notably within the once-vaunted line play as well as individual battles of receivers vs. cornerbacks. But unlike this past Monday, when the Texans ... More >>
Roger Clemens claims he's not coming back to major league baseball this season. I don't think anybody really believes Clemens when he says he's not coming back to the majors, otherwise, this whole thing doesn't make sense. If he's not coming back, then why else go through the motions of getting ba ... More >>
Assessing all their strengths and weaknesses, we could be looking at a repeat or better.
At this point in the season, it's more about effort than execution. We're all rusty, even the media. Hell, Saturday night alone one local sports anchor mistook Keshawn Martin being the rookie wide receiver who was suspended last year instead of DeVier Posey (tweets deleted), the Houston Chronicle ... More >>
In the timeless Steve Martin comedy The Jerk, there's a famous scene where Martin's character Navin R. Johnson sprints across the parking lot to snag a copy of the new phone book to confirm that, indeed, his name and phone number are included. When he is able to find his name he screams that inclus ... More >>
It's often not whom you play, but when you play. That's the key item to consider when evaluating an NFL schedule release. Ranking schedules based on prior-year records, as some media outlets did this week in proclaiming an "easy" slate for the Texans, can be misleading. For example, Denver -- sche ... More >>
In general, I think Texan fans are excited for the upcoming 2012 season, but that has more to do with how strong the team looked in 2011 than the collective offseason efforts of the front office. In fact, the offseason has been littered with far more bad news than good, highlighted (or lowlighted, a ... More >>
It was less than a month ago when I believed the Texans would consider making a play for quarterback Peyton Manning. But on the verge of the NFL's free-agent signing bonanza on Tuesday, it looks as though any Texans' changes will be on a smaller scale -- and rightfully so. It seems clear the Texan ... More >>
If everyday breakups went as smoothly as the press conference at Colts headquarters Wednesday, you'd see far fewer people staying in dysfunctional relationships to merely avoid the pain and anguish that comes with ending it. Colts owner Jim Irsay and longtime quarterback/franchise icon Peyton Manni ... More >>
NBA executives are beaming these days with the Tim Tebow-like mania for the Knicks' Jeremy Lin, a Harvard grad whose family comes from Taiwan. Not only is Lin getting hysteria in the States, but he is reawakening visions of opening the lucrative Chinese and Asian market back to the NBA, dreams whic ... More >>
Most everyone gets that you can't shout "fire" in a movie theater or crack jokes about bombs on an airplane. This sort of thing will get you in a mess of trouble. But, apparently, jokes made on Twitter can also get you in trouble, particularly if you are a foreigner using slang we don't get in 'Meri ... More >>
As the 2012 presidential race begins to heat up in earnest, Rocks Off can't help but feel that the front-runners for the Republican nomination are lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. Call it star power. Call it sex appeal. Whatever it is, these guys ain't got it. If the GOP is serious about wresti ... More >>
During a panel discussion on C-SPAN recently, someone mentioned that the Ronald Reagan Library has a list online of every movie he and Nancy watched at Camp David or the White House. So we checked it out. They watched a lot of movies, including Reagan's old films. There are a lot of Hollywood class ... More >>
The scarcity of games on these NFL playoff weekends is a huge reason why wagering in the postseason can be a death trap of second-guessing for me. Fewer games on the board means there's way more time to focus (and, frankly, OVER-focus if there is such a thing) on the scant few games being played. ... More >>
Texas gives to the world, and eventually the people who do the giving die. Such was the case in 2011, when at least nine notable Texans joined the Choir Invisible, the Great Majority, the dead. Without them, there would no Weed-Eaters, and perhaps the greatest college football/politician scandal ev ... More >>
Not read by Jerry Rice.It seems like every retired NFL player with any small modicum of celebrity over the last decade has found his way onto television, either on the NFL Network or ESPN. The amount of money that is spent on salaries for largely repetitive, and oftentimes useless, opinions h ... More >>
Photos by Marco TorresHopes are rising at ReliantThis time last season, in the aftermath of a Week 13 Michael Vick-administered beatdown on a Thursday night in Philadelphia, the Texans began preparation for a Week 14 Monday night game with the Baltimore Ravens in Houston. We all know how tha ... More >>
Everyone wants The Beard"Peyton Manning's not going to let (the Colts) draft Andrew Luck." -- Phil Simms "I don't talk to Phil. Phil doesn't talk to me. He did text me after that, saying 'Hey, sorry to drag your name into this.' I wrote back, 'Phil I don't know what you're talking about.' He ... More >>
Cam Newtown: We got a 36 play, a 37 play, all kinds of plays.While ESPN has become a bit of a safe haven for literally dozens of retired players and terminated coaches who have no business on television, occasionally they come up with a gem. If you cast the net wide enough, you have to, righ ... More >>
The color, the pageantry of college footballSince it's Week 17 of the NFL season, we're changing it up a little bit this week. I don't know about people who actually know what they're doing when it comes to wagering, but my experience with the NFL in Week 17 is that it's a good time to stay ... More >>
It's all about the sexIt's a bye week Friday, so we don't have the Texans defense to kick around this week. So I'm going to use my Friday post as a forum to do the new and exciting Friday activity that's sweeping the nation -- telling people to follow other people on Twitter! Riveting! Actuall ... More >>
The Houston Cougars (3-1) won't be changing their offensive identity to suit whoever starts at quarterback this weekend. They are the team they were at game one. Or so said head coach Kevin Sumlin earlier this week. Never mind that a freshman will be starting the game. Never mind that the C ... More >>
Reggie Bush has always been a cheaterI'll get to the Best Bets of the weekend in a second, I promise, but first some venting.Reggie Bush is rapidly moving up my most hated list.Not because he chose to attend Southern Cal instead of Notre Dame. Not because the defining play of Notre Dame's decade ... More >>
@dramaqueen"Hello World, the Real King James is in the Building 'Finally'. My Brother @oneandonlycp3 gas'd me up to jump on board so I'm here. Haaaa" -- LeBron James (oh sorry...@KingJames on Twitter, and what is sadly his most interesting tweet thus far)I've always thought that when Twitte ... More >>
If the food police wanted to really control childhood obesity, then they would just go into every grocery store in America and set fire to the cereal isle. But, we know that the sugar-coated cereal lobby led by Sam the Toucan, Dig-Em the Frog and their evil leader Tony the Tiger is just too powerful ... More >>
Between-race entertainment at the DerbyI love horse racing. Actually, to be clear, I love the act of going to the racetrack -- any racetrack -- and sitting in the bleachers (do they call them "bleachers" at a racetrack?) with three or four of my buddies, drinking about twelve beers, eating roughl ... More >>
If you are a celebrator of Christmas, you know what I mean when I say "that Christmas morning feeling" -- the giddy sensation when you wake up on December 25th, knowing that you made it through the 362 day grind since the last Christmas morning and today is the day that you get to open your p ... More >>
As sports fans, I think we probably let single events define players and coaches more than we should. In this era where we want to evaluate things quickly and neatly, it's always easier (and oftentimes, lazier) to just let one play on a big stage define somebody. It's clear, it's concise, it's also ... More >>
The time for talking is almost over, and tonight we'll find out if the shrinking spread on this season's BCS Title game and the last minute rush by some to the Texas Longhorn bandwagon is a harbinger of things to come. Me personally, I think Nick Saban dials up some exotic blitz packages that give ... More >>
So you stayed up a bit late last night doing the whole celebrating the New Year thing. Now your head's aching, the room's spinning, and you just want to flop on the couch and watch some sports. But you don't want to have to think about what sports to watch. That's where I come in. Here's a little ... More >>
I host a sports talk show for a living, four hours a day, five days a week. That's a lot of air time to fill, so you can imagine the number of hotly debated topics that arise during a regular twenty hour broadcast week. Just over the last few weeks on our show, we've seen John Harris and Rich ... More >>
Last night, the Rotary Lombardi Award for the top lineman in college football was given to Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. To anyone who watched him play this year, or even just watched him rag-doll and chokeslam the Texas offensive line in the Big XII championship game, Suh's winning th ... More >>
It's that time of year when we start to look back at the events that have happened. And since it's Thanksgiving, I thought I would give a list of sports things for which I'm thankful, as well as listing a few of the turkeys of the year. So...1. I'm thankful for the MLB Network. The network and it ... More >>
One season is ending. One season is just beginning. But for the Houston Cougars, it's a big Thanksgiving weekend either way with the football team playing for the C-USA West title, and the basketball team up in Alaska playing against Big 12 power Oklahoma in the Great Alaska Shootout on Thurs ... More >>
Photo courtesy UHIt was just last month that Matt Hogan was the third-string kicker and back-up punter for the Houston Cougars. But after his 51-yard field goal soared through the goal posts as the clock reached 00:00 on Saturday night, it's very doubtful that Hogan will have to worry about winn ... More >>
Photo courtesy UHIf the honor is in being nominated, then UH quarterback Case Keenum can just go ahead and shut it down before the season gets started. The junior QB, last season's Conference USA offensive player of the year, has had his name added to two more postseason watch lists, putting him ... More >>
Most of Houston's football focus is going to the Houston Texans, who are once again striving to produce an actual winning season. But there are several other football teams in Houston, and today, one of those teams officially reports for preseason camp.The team in question is the Houston Cougars, ... More >>
Austin -- Following last night's Florida Gators victory over the Oklahoma Sooners in the BCS Title Game, the Texas Longhorns football team held a press conference outside of the main entrance to Darrell K. Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium. Head Coach Mack Brown, reading from a prepared statement, st ... More >>
Austin -- Following last night's Florida Gators victory over the Oklahoma Sooners in the BCS Title Game, the Texas Longhorns football team held a press conference outside of the main entrance to Darrell K. Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium. Head Coach Mack Brown, reading from a prepared statement, st ... More >>
I'm sure the Longhorns and their fans are still pissed they didn't win the Big 12 and aren't playing for the national title. But screw Longhorns fans. I think I can speak for many college football fans who are pissed the Horns are playing in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State. Ohio effing Sta ... More >>
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