In his first season as Texans coach, DeMeco Ryans took the franchise from a 3-13-1 season to the divisional round of the AFC playoffs.
Detroit coach Dan Campbell, whose Lions lost to the 49ers in Sunday's NFC title game, is well aware how hard it is to get back.
Bum Phillips and the Oilers never got a third chance to kick in the door against the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game.
It was a masterful speech. The tone, the inflection, the pace. No football coach has ever done it better.
“One year ago, we knocked on the door,” Oail Andrew “Bum” Phillips Jr. said to the huge crowd gathered in the Astrodome.
Silence.
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“This year, we beat on the door.”
Loud applause … 11 seconds of anticipation … waiting for the Houston Oilers’ head coach to bring it home.
“Next year, we’re gonna kick the son of a bitch in!”
The resounding roar could be heard across the street at Astroworld, all over Houston for that matter.
It was a battle cry that resonated with the entire city. There was no doubt the Oilers were destined to return to the AFC Championship Game, where they would defeat the hated Pittsburgh Steelers and advance to their first Super Bowl.
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Well, next year never came. That door has yet to be kicked in. That son of a you-know-what is still standing.
In fact, in the 44 years since, the city of Houston’s NFL franchises — the Oilers and Texans — haven’t even gotten close enough to that darned door to be picked up by a doorbell camera.
TEXANS REPORT CARD: Grading a remarkable turnaround season
The greatest speech in Houston sports history, ranking just ahead of Rudy Tomjanovich’s “Heart of a Champion,” was inspirational at the time but ended up being just beautiful, meaningless words.
Dan Campbell, who like Phillips has small-town Texas roots, took the opposite approach after his Detroit Lions lost in the game before the big game.
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Had he been speaking to the Lions’ faithful inside the stadium, I have no doubt Campbell would have fired up the crowd with an emotional declaration on what is going to happen next year.
Instead, he addressed media in a somber season-ending Q&A session. Campbell believes the Lions are going to get back to the NFC Championship Game and win it to advance to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history, but he knows there are no guarantees.
“You can only say so much. You gotta live it, unfortunately,” Campbell said after a 34-31 loss to San Francisco on Sunday. “You gotta get your heart ripped out, which we did. It’s a lesson learned.
“Look, I told those guys this may have been our only shot. Do I think that? No. Do I believe that? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here. I’m well aware. And it’ll be — it’s gonna be — twice as hard to get back to this point next year than it was this year. That’s the reality. And if we don’t have the same hunger and the same work — which is a whole 'nother thing once we get to the offseason — then we got no shot of getting back here.
“You wanna make the most of every opportunity. And we had an opportunity, and we couldn’t close it out. It stinks.”
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Campbell and the Lions won two playoff games this year, exceeding by one Detroit’s postseason victory total for the previous 65 seasons combined. But coming up short of the Super Bowl hurt.
A phenomenal season doesn’t mean next year will be better or even as good. Forget what you have heard. There is no such thing as momentum in sports. What minor effect the last play has on the next one during a game certainly doesn’t carry over from year to year.
The Texans can’t ride the wave that saw them capture three must-win games in a row to reach this season’s divisional round to advance further in the playoffs a year from now. There is too much change, too much uncertainty.
Detroit and Houston, two of the three cities with 50-plus years of Super Bowl-free football (along with Cleveland), are 7:1 and 25:1, respectively, to win next year’s Super Bowl. Intriguing bets if you’re a gambler.
If only you could tell the future, like Biff with the Grays Sports Almanac.
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The real world doesn’t work that way.
The Falcons were all but celebrating their first Super Bowl win when they had a 28-3 lead over the Patriots late in the third quarter of Super Bowl LI at NRG Stadium in the 2016 season. They blew that game, then resolved to get back in it the next year.
“We are a tough group,” Atlanta coach Dan Quinn said after the game. “A loss like tonight, although it’s difficult, I would like to think that this group, we’re putting our stamp, and we’re just getting started to be what we can be.”
Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan echoed the sentiment. “We’ve got a young football team, a good football team,” he said. “So hopefully, we put ourselves in this position again next year.”
They didn’t. Atlanta lost in the divisional round the next season and hasn’t had a winning year since.
Ryan was traded to the Colts in 2022, then retired after a season. Quinn was fired five games into the 2020 season and has been the defensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys the past three years.
The Texans’ C.J. Stroud is the youngest quarterback to win an NFL playoff game. Stroud led the league in passing yards per game and touchdown-interception ratio. Only Joe Montana (1989) and Tom Brady (2007) had ever done that before. That’s incredible for a rookie. Clearly, Houston’s future is bright.
RELATED: The 7 biggest moments of C.J. Stroud's rookie season
Then again, Dan Marino is the youngest quarterback to ever start a Super Bowl. At 23, Marino was a year older than Stroud is now when he led the Dolphins against the 49ers in the 1985 game.
No doubt Marino was destined for many more. Except he wasn’t. He never played in another Super Bowl.
There are no guarantees.
As Bum Phillips once said, “There’s two days you can’t do anything about, and that’s yesterday and tomorrow.''
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