Houston’s Sports Lowlights of 2016 – Houston Press

It’s been a rough year for Houston sports. It’s one thing to have low expectations for your teams — hey, every year can’t be our year. It’s a different ballgame entirely to have high expectations that your teams fail to meet, setting the stage for heartbreak and frustration.

2016 was a year of redemption for down-on-their luck cities. Cleveland, home of the hapless Browns, saw its first championship in 52 years when the Cavaliers won the NBA Finals in June. Clevelanders came close to two titles in a single year when the Indians nearly beat the Chicago Cubs for their first World Series win since 1954.

Yet the Cubs streak was even longer, a preposterous 108 years. Though Chicago is no stranger to sports glory, a win for the North Siders ended the worst run of luck in baseball history.

So where does that leave Houston? Since 1995, when the Rockets won their second consecutive NBA championship, the Bayou City hasn’t won a title.

In a few weeks, we’ll ent

Here are some of the lowlights in Bayou City sports this year.

J.J. Watt Hurt, Out For The Season
Texans fans woke up Friday morning to a harsh reality and a cold, new world — a world in which J.J. Watt is now viewed as possibly football-mortal, having undergone back surgery earlier in the week for a herniated disk.

The Astros Aren’t Dead Yet, But the Grim Reaper Is Pounding on the Door
Heading into the All-Star Break, the Astros were closing in on the first-place Rangers. But by September, the wheels had come off the bus.

Dwight Howard Opts Out of Contract With Rockets
When Dwight Howard arrived in Houston in July 2013, with dreams of championship runs dancing through the heads of Rockets fans everywhere, we all assumed he would opt out of his four-year contract after the third year, so his doing so today, unto itself, is not a surprise.

Cougars Kiss Perfection Good-bye in Shocking Loss to Navy
The Houston Cougars’ making the college football playoffs was always kind of a pipe dream, especially playing in a non-power conference, and especially with a schedule that included Lamar and Texas State. But if UH played a perfect season and dispatched opponents with ease and domination every step of the way, there was always a chance.

NFL Week 3: Patriots 27, Texans 0 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
Okay, I’m not heading into this recap with any flowery prose or clever analogies. I’m operating on four hours of sleep after a night of taking three hours of angry phone calls from Houston Texans fans following three more hours of the worst football I’ve watched paid professionals play — a 27-0 wilting by the Texans in New England.

#HTownTakeOVER: Herman Accepts Texas Head Coaching Position
The Tom Herman head coaching saga is officially over. Ultimately, the outcome everybody predicted would happen about the time Texas head coach Charlie Strong lost his fourth game of the 2016 football season did happen — Tom Herman, the soon-to-be-former University of Houston head coach and founder of the #HTownTakeover, left for UT.