Luv ya, Blue

On the eve of Monday Night’s matchup between the storied Steelers of the rest of my household and the Faceless Franchise that is my Houston Oilers-Tennessee Titans, I discovered a couple of retrospectives on NFL Network’s “A Football Life” that put this personal civil war in some perspective.

The retrospectives were on Earl Campbell and Steve McNair, probably the most dominant players ever to wear the Columbia and Blue with apologies to Eddie George. It’s been a long time since the Titans have been relevant. We have to depend on nostalgia to get us through some Sundays.

It was nice to be reminded how great Earl Campbell was as a running back. I saw Jim Brown play on TV as a kid and there’s no discounting what he accomplished. Most people, including Brown himself, rank the 10 time rushing champion #1. Jimmy B ranks Earl #2 and if I had to start a franchise with a running back I would choose The Tyler Rose on my fantasy team. I watch other teams from time to time these days to see how professional football is supposed to be done since we’re not doing that in Nashville. Marshawn Lynch is described as going into “Beast Mode”, but after watching some of Earl’s highlights with the Oilers I realize Marshawn is just having a temper tantrum. He’s downright housebroken compared to Earl Campbell.

Earl never met anyone he wanted to run around and he ran over most people. Some of the highlight reels in the program looked like a man among boys or a bull in a china shop with the defensive players looking almost fragile. Earl and the Oilers sparked the “Luv Ya, Blue” mania in Houston in the late 1970s. My hometown rallied behind the franchise despite the fact they were only the second best team in football and in the same division as the best, the beloved Pittsburgh Steelers of the rest of my family.

The Oilers were indeed built around a running back, but they forgot to complement Earl with a quarterback. Dante Pastorini couldn’t get it done and Kenny “The Snake” Stabler was already done when he got to Houston. Bum Phillips ran Earl 300+ times, which worked against everybody except the Steelers. Pittsburgh simply handled the Oiler wideouts with man coverage and eight or nine were in the box for Earl. Even a bull can’t run through a steel curtain that in reality was more of a wall.

Mean Joe Greene was the only player in the NFL in Earl’s class as a pure football player, as good at defensive tackle as Earl was at running the football. The irresistible force met the immovable object on numerous occasions and Mean Joe had better people around him to man the curtain.

The Oilers never got over that Steeler hump and lost to them twice in the AFC championship game. There was a steel curtain between the Oilers and the Super Bowl. Fans of the Titans now, who haven’t sniffed the playoffs in several years, may find it hard to believe a coach could get fired for not quite beating probably the best pro team ever assembled, the Steelers of the late ‘70s. But it happened.

The one constant in the sad story of the Columbia Blue is the ownership of Bud Adams. Bud probably should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame because of helping found the AFL alone, but his actions over the years polarized enough people his selection will be posthumous. Bud fired Bum Phillips in 1980 after a third misfire in the playoffs and effectively destroyed “Luv Ya, Blue” mania. The feeling of the fans of Houston deteriorated so far as to refuse to build him a new stadium. So, Bud took his team to Tennessee as punishment, though he continued to live in Houston River Oaks. The people of mine and Bud’s hometown were so chastised they got themselves another NFL franchise and built a stadium that dwarfs the old Astrodome the Oilers played in. Bud thumbing his nose at Houston was about as effective as the middle finger salute he trotted out at a game in Nashville a couple years back.

We have a saying in Texas. Oil money can buy a lot of things but class isn’t one of them.

I traded myself from Houston to Nashville about the time Bud fired Bum and washed myself of the Oilers for about 10 years until Bud did his road show act. I even wrote an article for The Tennessean when news of the Oilers’ coming was announced where I warned Nashville not to trust Bud Adams as he would break your heart. But I screwed up and to quote a girl from the movie “Bull Durham”, I got lured.

I had met and married a Pittsburgh girl and being a newlywed I even allowed myself to be dressed up in Steeler garb for a rainy game in Memphis between the two teams. I tried to join the family Steeler party, but found myself rooting for the Homeless Tennessee Oilers despite how I was dressed. Somehow the withered roots of “Luv ya, Blue” wouldn’t let me root for the team I used to hate.

I’ve continued to root for the Titans through a little thick and a lot of thin. I’ll chronicle the sins of Bud in Tennessee in a post later this weekend. I haven’t gone to a game since a preseason one in about 2004 when I was invited to fight by an over-served young man who had 30 years and about 80 pound on me. My wife doesn’t think I can be trusted to not identify jerks by their more colorful name. So I root from afar.

My son and grandson are going Monday night and have an extra ticket, but it’s going to be 21 degrees with snow showers and there’s probably a drunken kid out there with my name on his cursing lips. So it’s a personal health decision as to why I will watch from my living room.

It’s telling that in the promos for Monday Night Football, the Steelers are represented by Big Ben Roethlisberger while the Titans are represented by a second round draft pick with 390 yards rushing who is also asking, “Why me?”

Such is the state of a matchup between a storied franchise against a franchise with nothing but sad stories. I’m a fan of that Faceless Franchise that is the Tennessee Titans. For some reason, I still Luv ya, Blue.

I just wish you would luv me back.