Sean Pendergast

The vibes around an NFL franchise rebuild can be fascinating. Last season, the first season of the DeMeco Ryans Era in Houston, in Week 9, the Texans pulled off a last second comeback over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at home, to even their record at 4-4. C.J. Stroud threw for 470 yards that cay, and the future could not have been brighter, even though 4-4 is a fairly pedestrian overall record.

With his offensive line continually putting C.J. Stroud in mortal danger every week, Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans is facing the first real crisis of his head coaching tenure. If the offensive line were one of several problems on a bad team, somewhat ironically, this would be way less...

The Houston Texans have enough on their front burner — offensive line issues and the Lions coming to town at the top of the list — to where the season ending injury to Stefon Diggs has not really been a topic since DeMeco Ryans informed us all that Diggs was done for the season last week.

Constructing an NFL roster, while managing the league's salary cap, is ultimately about markets, about supply and demand, and about asset allocation. You have a certain number of dollars you can spend on a roster, so finding inefficiencies in the marketplace (code for "cheap, but productive players") is a huge...

It's been a while since the NFL Trade Deadline was something for Houston Texans fans to pay close attention to, at least as a potential buyer. Even last season, when the team was in the mix for a postseason berth, and buying may have made sense, fans weren't thirsty for moves, because they were just happy the team was relevant again.

The NFL is a strange place, where expectations tend to be the compass for emotion among fans. Take the Houston Texans, for example. A year ago, the Texans were 6-4 through 10 games, after a three game winning streak that included a scintillating comeback over the Buccaneers, a road win at Cincinnati, and win at home against Arizona. They were the last of the town!

As Houston Texans fans, on Sunday night at NRG Stadium, we learned a lesson in perception. On paper, you may look art the Texans losing to the Detroit Lions, arguably the best team in football, on a last second field goal as a positive, a sign they stood in toe to toe with the best in the league. Had the game played out all night in a back and forth fashion, maybe the feelings would be better this morning.

The Houston Texans are in Year 2 of the DeMeco Ryans Era, and while they are going through a stormy patch right now, having lost three out of their last four games, I think that Ryans is still, by and large, one of the most popular sports figures in Houston. If you have any sort of long term memory, you recall what the Lovie Smith and David Culley seasons felt like. That sucked. This is better.

The wheels of Alex Bregman's first foray into MLB free agency continue to grind slowly. Publicly at least, there haven't been any big rumblings. The Astros' window of exclusivity ended a few days after the World Series was over, so Bregman is free to continue his career with whichever team meets his contractual desires.

There is no doubt that this coming December will be the greatest December in college football history. For years, December actually peaked early with conference championship games in the first weekend, and then a slew of mid-to lower-tier bowl games until business picked back up in January for the big bowls. The 12 team College Football Playoff, though, will change all of that.