The team that wins Super Bowl XLV is not coming from nowhere, but from a set of factors that clearly dictate results based on the predetermined set of conditions entering the season. Talent is necessary, but to succeed skill and precision on the field needs to be complimented with a favorable motivational set of circumstances.
While the physical skill of all teams can be evaluated by what squads gain the most yards and are successful at preventing their opponents from doing the same, having those statistics culminate with a championship is determined as much by the chemistry of a team as it is by pure statistics.
Every team has a perceived expectation level, and while every squad in August will claim their goal is to win the Super Bowl, teams as weak as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Detroit Lions would consider the season a success if they won as many games as they lost, even if they fell short of the playoffs. On the other extreme, teams with a goal they consider realistic that includes a Super Bowl win, squads such as the Indianapolis Colts or Minnesota Vikings, would be disappointed without a win in the postseason. If they compiled more wins than losses in the regular season, but failed to qualify for a playoff berth, they would consider the season a failure.
Expectations versus talent and chemistry can be reduced to a mathematical equation, and when expectations are higher than talent dictates, failure is almost certain to follow. When talent is ahead of expectations, then a team that missed the playoffs the previous two seasons can be perfectly poised to win the Super Bowl.
The New Orleans Saints are a recent example. Expectations where high after their run to the NFC Championship Game in 2006, and those high hopes were met with a pair of seasons that did not produce a winning record. Last year, the Saints talent was improved over recent years, and the expectations dropped.
For the New Orleans Saints to win the Super Bowl in 2009 they had to win more postseason games than all the previous Saints teams had combined to win since the formation of the franchise in 1967. In the forty-two year history of the New Orleans Saints they had won two postseason games. The Saints first postseason victory was earned in 2000 while Jim Haslett was head coach and New Orleans defeated the St. Louis Rams in an NFC Wild Card game. The second postseason win, over the Philadelphia Eagles in a 2006 Divisional Playoff Game, came at the Superdome by a 27-24 score … a game the home team was favored by 5½ points.
The Saints won the Super Bowl last year not because of what they had done in previous seasons, but based on where they were positioned to perform when talent and motivation were both weighed in charting their direction. And while the Saints won the Super Bowl over the Indianapolis Colts last season, they now carry higher expectations than even their extraordinary talent dictates.
The team that is going to win Super XLV in Texas next February is not opening the season with expectations higher than their talent … but they will open the 2010 season with a resounding win to announce their arrival.
Last September in Detroit the New Orleans Saints opened their Super Bowl winning campaign with a game in which they toyed with the Lions and their rookie quarterback, Matthew Stafford, on their way to a ‘score at will’ romp victory, easily covering the road favorite role with a 45-27 triumph.
There are 32 teams in the National Football League, and 31 of them have advanced to at least one postseason game. Even the Cleveland Browns, a team reborn after their original franchise was moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens in 1996, have been to the postseason both as the old Browns and the team in Cleveland that began play in 1999.
Three years after the Browns reopened operation off Lake Erie, the Houston Texans became the thirty-second NFL franchise. In their eight years of operation the Texans have failed to earn a playoff date … the only team in the thirty-two team league without a playoff appearance.
Yet, we are not interested in only what the Houston Texans have been, but much more importantly, where they are headed. What are their prospects this season? Houston is solid in the first two categories that can be measured at the start of training camp; talent and motivation.
There is one obvious reason the Texans have never been to the postseason, they are playing in a division with the Indianapolis Colts and their franchise began operation in Peyton Manning’s fifth year as a pro. In every season since the Texans began play eight years ago, the Colts have been to the playoffs either as the AFC South Division winner or with a Wild Card berth. Manning has played the best years of his career while the Texans have had to look at the Colts above them in the standings every season they have played. That is a streak scheduled to end.
On the field, even with their consistent two losses a year to Manning and his Colts, Houston improved during their initial seasons in the league, winning four games in their expansion year, five games in 2003 and seven in their third season. Their expansion year wins included an opening week victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the battle for Texas, marking the first time a new franchise won their initial game since the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Chicago Bears to kickoff the 1961 NFL season.
The Texans took their only step backward in 2005 when they were 2-14. Since then, the Texans have improved four straight years, winning six games in 2006, and eight the following two seasons before last year’s first ever winning campaign, 9-7 in 2009.
The Texans offensive talent includes arguably the best receiver in football, a strong running game, and Matt Schaub at quarterback. Schaub has statistics that rival any QB in the game, and if he can merge his talent with a healthy season, he has a chance to lead the Texans to the Super Bowl.
Houston picks up a break this year given the Indianapolis Colts have both physical and motivational factors working against them extending their consecutive playoff appearances to nine seasons. And while Indianapolis is vulnerable in the AFC South Division, neither the Tennessee Titans nor Jacksonville Jaguars, the remaining squads in that division, appear ready to vault to the top. The gate is wide open for the Texans to capture their first division title and ride that success to their first ever playoff appearance and win.
As for doing good on opening day, only one Super Bowl winner in the 44 year history of the game has lost their opening game at home and gone on to capture the Vince Lombardi Trophy. That was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lost in overtime at home to the New Orleans Saints before ending the 2002 season with a win over the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII.
The Texans have all the pieces in place both from a talent and motivational perspective entering the 2010 season … and if they show the magic that usually accompanies a Super Bowl team in the preseason they could well be our choice to represent the AFC in Super Bowl XLV.
And, if they are our choice, we will know if we are on target after the first week of regular season play … because the Texans open what should be their breakthrough campaign at Reliant Stadium against the defending AFC Champion Indianapolis Colts.
NEXT WEEK: COWBOYS RIDE
