The Josh Innes Show - Houston Sports Hellscape

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

The Astros are collapsing. The Texans suck. Fred VanVleet is hurt. This is not a good time for Houston. Imagine if the Texans lose this week. We are in the threshold of hell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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little plastic twist ties, SAP can help you tackle those unexpected crushing setbacks with its AI powered capabilities. To pivot to new suppliers, automate paperwork, and source the twist ties you need at the price you want, so your business can stay unstoppable. Learn more at So we talked yesterday about the Texans and how much of a mess they appear to be right now. And they are a mess. I don't think there's anything that you can debate there. You got a quarterback who seems like a totally different human. Not only is he disinterested, but he seems to be bad at football right now.

You have got an offensive line that's dreadful. You haven't won a football game. The shine has kind of come off of everything. the luster has kind of worn off. And now what you're stuck with is a mediocre football team, maybe a bad football team. They may actually just be a bad football team. Although I don't believe they're a bad football team based on the defense they have.

I think the defense is solid enough to keep them from being a bad football team. But your record, you are what your record says you are. And they are an 0-and-3 team. And if they lose this weekend to the Titans, holy shit, like it's over. Let's play a couple commercials, and we'll get into some stuff. Boy, think about being Houston right now. If not for the Tigers having the most epic collapse in the history of baseball, 15 and a half game lead over the Guard Indians on July 8th, they are now a game behind the Indians with

four games to go. That's where we are right now. If not for that, people would look at what the Astros have done and go, holy shit, this is pretty epic. And look at what Seattle has done and go, boy, this is pretty epic. Difference, of course, being that the Astros have dealt with a shitload of injuries as part of their collapse. The tigers have been relatively healthy and the tigers have just fallen off a cliff. Here's the reality of the tigers. And people in Detroit don't seem to want to

hear this, but it's reality. It's not a very good roster of players. They're not a super talented team. So they got out to a really hot start and they basically had a calendar year, like a 162 game stretch of really good baseball dating back to the end of last year and like the first half of this year. But they're not super talented. So it's not shocking that they're not winning. It's shocking that they had a 15 and a half game lead on July 8th. It's shocking that they had an 11 game lead 20 days ago. 20 days ago, they were a team that was winning the AL Central by 11 games. They are now down one game. And if not for the Texans falling off a cliff, or rather the Astros falling off a cliff, I guess they didn't fall off a cliff.

They stumbled down a rather large hill. The tigers have fallen off a cliff. But imagine you're the Tigers, right? You have seen your division lead go from 15 and a half games to actually a deficit, and you've seen your division lead go from an 11 game lead to a deficit over the course of three weeks. Epic what's happening. Yet as it stands right now, you are still in the postseason because the Astros are just about as a bigger group of losers as you are. Boy, things could really take a turn in Houston sports-wise, right? Because we've talked about this before. Houston is not a good sports town by like the definition of what makes a good sports town. You know, your good sports towns are, you know, your places where it kind of gets cold and the people, like, their whole livelihood kind of centers around how good the teams are, right?

So you're Chicago's and your Cleveland's. Like, I'm listening to Cleveland play Detroit on the radio, and these are basically playoff games that they're playing in Detroit. And the crowd is sold out and it's loud. And like it comes through the radio and the announcers, the Detroit. Detroit announcers are talking about it. They're like, holy shit. This stuff is blasting. Like, these people are into it.

Then I went to a playoff game, or not a playoff game, but like last week I was at a ball game in Detroit, and I didn't feel any of that. Like, it's like certain places are just more passionate. Cleveland is just more passionate. Philadelphia is just more passionate. Boston. I mean, these are places that are just more passionate than Houston, right? So you have to win to keep people's attention.

You have to win, and you have to win, you know, sizably. You can't be a 42-win basketball team and keep people interested. You can't be a non-playoff baseball team and keep people interested. And here's what's in danger of happening. And this happens to everybody, right? Every team, like every dynasty. And I think we can call what's happened for the last almost decade of Astros baseball to be a dynasty. What?

They went to like seven straight ALCSs, went to multiple World Series, one multiple world series. If you don't want to call it a dynasty over semantics, fine. but what they're doing is one of the all-time great runs in the history of sport, the history of baseball, certainly, and in the history of sports, especially in the modern era of sport, where this is difficult to do. We're not talking about the 1940s where one team can dominate forever. We're talking about this era where free agents, I mean, you know what I'm talking about. So, like, what the Astros have done is one of the more incredible runs you're ever going to see in sports. Eventually, these things come to an end, right? and you wonder how close we are to seeing the Astros bubble totally burst in Houston and people lose interest.

Because once you've given people multiple World Series and you've given people seven straight trips to the ALCS, you give them a couple of mediocre to bad years, and it's like, I'm not going to waste my time with this. We're in a position right now where Houston sports, which two years ago, right? you could say it was kind of at its apex, about as good as it's ever been, right? You had C.J. Stroud was going to be the dude. I thought you had a franchise quarterback there. You've got the Astros Super World Series contenders and the rockets are now on the bounce back. Actually, I'd take that back.

Two years ago, I guess wouldn't be fair. But I think you could look at like 2018. I don't think 2018 would be unfair to say was kind of like the apex of modern sports success for Houston. You were right in the middle of the seven straight trips to the LCS. You were making World Series appearances with the baseball team. They had a chance to win the World Series every year. They were coming off a World Series. The Rockets had James Harden and could as should have been in the NBA finals.

But they were very good and they were a legit contender every year, quote unquote, contender. And the Texans had Deshaun Watson before we knew he was getting fingers in his asshole and sexually assaulting women. That was kind of the apex. That was like it was not really better than that. Certainly in the modern era of sports in Houston, it was never better than what it was. Maybe in 17, 18, right? Maybe 19, if you want to include that. I guess 17 wasn't Deshawn time yet, right?

It was 17 to, like maybe 2018 may have been kind of the apex of all of that. But now you look at where it is, we could be on the precipice of a downturn that is going to leave sports just completely obsolete in Houston. Because baseball team is still pretty good, but what if this becomes the norm? You're just fighting for a playoff spot, and you're no longer, like, the dominant force in the AL West or a dominant force that competes in the AL? Like, what if it's not? What if CJ actually sucks and what if, like, you don't decide to pay him? And then you have to find a new quarterback at some point. And Fred Van Vleet is hurt for the rockets.

And not that Fred Van Vleet's going to make or break the rockets. They've got Kevin Durant. But what if Kevin Durant comes here and blows out his Achilles because he's an old dude and they fall off a cross. Cliff. Houston's not the kind of town. And by the way, this not to knock Houston, because a lot of towns are like this. But like, this is not the kind of town that is going to just kind of sit around for crappy play. They don't have interest in it. Houston's not a town that sits around and just fights through the bad times with teams. They just tune out. Like this weekend, this is a very good chance. And it's hard to believe we're saying this, considering where the Texans were two years ago.

This game this weekend is going to determine whether or not people still remember. I remain interested for another week in Texans football. Oh, and four would probably have most cities uninterested, to be fair. But if you lose to Tennessee, if you don't blow them out, if you're playing a 14-13 game against Tennessee that you have to win on a last second field goal, we talked about this yesterday. If you're playing a 14-13 game and you have to win it at the very end, at the horn, it's a walk-off, people aren't interested in that. It's just not the kind of city where mediocre and, hey, let's fight through it works. That's not Houston. Houston is, hey, win and let's be competitive and let's actually have chance to win championships or be exciting, be interesting, or we're out.

You can argue, like people would argue that coaching in New York and places like that are difficult. And it is. I mean, it's tough to coach in Philadelphia, right? But what's tougher? Coaching in a place where people actually give a shit, thus the ownership. has to make moves to keep the people happy. Like, people put pressure on you in Philadelphia. Thus, you have to spend money if you're the Phillies.

Thus, you have to go out and make big moves if you're the Eagles, right? Like, you have to do that, or people will shit on you until you are fired. I can argue that it's tougher to coach in a place like Houston where people will just lose interest real quick. Like, is it tougher to deal with apathy as a franchise, or is it tougher to deal with people that are passionate. And I would argue that it's tougher to deal with apathy. Because apathy is like, well, we don't really have to do anything. I mean, people just tune out and it is what it is. But in Philadelphia, people will shit on you until you have to be fired. There's a pressure that comes along with that. But you can argue it's tougher to coach in a place

where you have to deal with apathy and you have to deal with a lack of interest in the product. Where, you know, to get people interested, you have to do big things. It can't just be, hey, Like in Philadelphia, you turn the lights on at the football stadium and there's 60,000 people at the game. That ain't the case in Houston. If they're in 0 and 4, good luck for that home game. Good luck, you know, when you're 0 and 4, 1 and 3, 1 and 4 trying to get people into the stadium. It's just a different world. And you could argue it's a tougher world to be in than some of these other worlds.

But this is a really like this is a turning point time for teams in Houston. Look at the, again, the Astros. If not for the fact that the time. Tigers are in the middle of the greatest collapse in the history of baseball. And by the way, they're still in the playoffs, which is wild because, again, go look at the Astros. The Astros have been so bad as well that the Astros are now fighting. They've lost the division. Now they're fighting for a wild card spot.

That other wild card spot is either going to be the Guard Indians or it's going to be the Tigers more than likely. The fact that you're still out of the playoffs and there's a team that's lost, what, nine, ten games in a row with the Tigers? and you are out of the playoffs because you yourself can't get out of your own way. We are heading towards a very bad Houston sports time, friends.