Oil up!

Amy Adams Strunk has done the unthinkable and followed my advice. The Tennessee Titans are seemingly returning to their roots by restoring the Houston Oilers-era colors. While many of you might think I would chalk this up as a victory, it’s not as simple as that. This is a hallowed victory—one that I had hoped would never happen.

According to various reports, which I won’t cite here, the Titans are abandoning the “Greek mythology” themes by ditching the sword and flames and making the Tennessee stars of the state flag its main logo. I should say for the record that I never had a problem with the “Titans” theme. I didn’t have an issue with the theory. It was the execution that I took umbrage over. Since the news broke, many have come to the defense of the so-called “flaming thumbtack” and its “2000s maximalist” design. I will simply say that they’re wrong. That era of design sucked ass. But I will agree that the new logo is underwhelming. While I have stated repeatedly that I prefer simplicity with uniform design, I don’t feel that way about logo design. Had the Titans/Oilers always resided in Tennessee, then the new logo would have been perfectly serviceable. It’s clean and simple, just like the Steelers, Cowboys, and Green Bay for example. The difference is those teams have been historically good and never relocated. Simplicity works for them. It’s recognizable. It harkens back to the classical days of the NFL.

Which leads us to a big problem. It appears that the Titans wish to link its history in Houston with its history in Tennessee. But as any Tennessean will tell you, they don’t give a shit about its Houston era. And why should they? The Titans might as well be an expansion franchise. So in short, Bud Adams made a critical mistake in renaming the Oilers. At the very least, keeping the name in place might have resulted in the team retaining some fans in Texas. Now the Adams family wish to remedy that mistake nearly 30 years later? It’s too late. Houston has a new franchise now, the Texans, and they’re currently in a much better spot than the Titans. And btw, the Texans and Titans are divisional rivals. Restoring the old Oilers colors would only give the Texans added ammunition which they don’t need. So to me, this seems like a bad, BAD idea.

Additionally, something makes me SICK about seeing Cam Ward wear #1 in Oilers colors. Yes, I know that Warren Moon let him do it, but it doesn’t make it right. But if this is the path that the Titans wish to go down, then go all the way. Restore the Oilers name. I know that the “Tennessee Oilers” doesn’t make much sense, but as I’ve said time and time again: no one gives a shit.

Tennessee Oilers

I get it. I understand why Bud Adams changed it from the Oilers to the Titans. Still though, the Titans should have remained the Oilers.

“But there’s no oil in Tennessee 😭😭😭,” you say.

Who cares?

LA and Utah are hardly known for their lakes and jazz, yet that hasn’t stopped their NBA teams. I’d also like to add that the three greatest players in “Titans” history – Warren Moon, Mike Munchak, and Earl Campbell – never played a down of football in Tennessee.

Arguably, the Tennessee Titans/Houston Oilers franchise has seen their best days in Nashville (they went to a Super Bowl for instance), but forget all of that. Everyone remembers this team for one reason and reason only: those dope ass Houston Oilers uniform.

Let’s just be honest, no one likes the Titans “two tone blue.” While the solid navy blue uniforms have grown on me the past few seasons, it was always a mistake to make that the primary color over the traditional “Titans/Oilers (light) blue.”

As for the logo, it’s respectable that the Titans incorporated the the three stars found on the Tennessee state flag, but it’s still a shitty logo. And they made it worse by adding an inexplicable flame to it.

Why make this the main logo when they have much better one available?

Am I crazy to think that this one’s cooler?

Slap that on the side of the helmet, revert back to the Oilers colors, and suddenly Tennessee goes from having one of the worst uniforms to one of the best!

Everybody wants this to happen. But I suppose the Adams family wants to be respectful to the city of Houston for abandoning them. But fuck ‘em! They ended up getting another (shitty) franchise!

Plus, everyone thinks the Houston Texans are a joke anyway. Nobody likes them. So if Tennessee wants fans to start liking them again, they should flush their current uniforms down the toilet and reissue the old Oilers outfits. And if they can’t do this full time, then they should just do it twice a year when they play Houston so that they can laugh in their stupid fucking faces.

GOAT

Poor Warren Moon.

He didn’t get drafted because the NFL is racist. He never advanced to a Super Bowl. And his number and name is in the rafters in a city he never played for.

Additionally, of all the NFL throwback games I find on YouTube involving the Houston Oilers, Moon loses in all of them (including, most infamously, “the Comeback”, which was not Moon’s fault). Fortunately, the NFL did the right thing, and put him in the HoF.

Now Moon played contemporaneously along side other HoF QBs like Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, John Elway, Troy Aikman, Steve Young, and Brett Favre. And I gotta say: if I had to draft a QB from the guys on the list, I’d still take Warren Moon.

I prefer my football to be exciting. And once when the Oilers initiated the “Run and Shoot” offense, that shit was good. But more importantly, I prefer a strong-armed QB. Now Elway, Marino, and Favre had notoriously powerful arms, but it’s one thing to have a cannon. It’s another thing to harness that power. Moon perhaps wasn’t the most “accurate” QB (nobody really was back in those days), but when he threw the ball, it was a thing of beauty:

Nobody throws a spiral like that. I mean, I can. And have. But you can’t. Nor can any other NFL QB. Because there’s a whole science behind it: