The Advance Scout | HoustonProFootball.com 
December 12, 2005
Someone Mention a Tank Job?
by Keith Weiland
HoustonProFootball.com
For the third game in a row the Texans lost in improbable fashion. A chance to send Sunday’s game against the Titans into overtime, and Kris Brown misses what is normally an automatic field goal attempt for him. Not even close.
So the Texans have lost three straight games in the game’s final minute. Three straight games in which the Texans might have actually had the better team. Three straight games in which the Texans might have actually had more to gain by losing than by winning.
Reggie Bush better be worth it. All this talk of tank jobs though, and I’m suddenly channeling General George S. Patton from the great beyond in my instant messenger.
Is it really him? How could I be sure?
“If a man does his best,” Patton writes to me, “what else is there?”
I punch out the keys on my keyboard to answer him, “A 2-11 record.” I click send. The message slips off into the great beyond. I blush when I pretend I’m Whoopi Goldberg in that movie Ghost feeling up Demi Moore. Mmmmmm…. Demi.
Ten seconds later, my messenger beeps. Still harboring a little free coffee leftover from the Texans lone win of the season, the caffeine startles me when I get a response. I spew Exxon’s finest all over my keyboard. Dammit!
Patton’s message reads, “I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”
Oookay. Well, that certainly wasn’t worth a keyboard. Asshole. It must be him.
I already know the Texans are certainly at the bottom now. I don’t need any military Confucius mumbo jumbo to make me feel better. Old Blood and Guts sure is cryptic for a dead guy.
I type, “The only bottoms I wanna hit — wait, that’s not coming out quite like how I meant. What I mean is that I believe in fish tanks, gas tanks, tank tops, and even an occasional think tank, but I refuse to believe my beloved Texans are really turning their septic tank of a 2005 season into a plain old tank job.”
I click send. Patton types “BRB”, e-lingo for “be right back”. So I wait. And wait. And wait some more.
“Hello?” I type. “Look, if you’re gonna just bail on me, I’m Audi.”
The screen flickers. “Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.”
So I can wait a minute. It’s the least I can do for one of my country’s greatest war heroes, right? Then he types, “Sorry. Had to see if Bree was really going to do that pharmacist guy on Desperate Housewives. Now where was I?”
“Come on, you watch that show?”
“Hey don’t get all judgmental on me. I know Season 2 isn’t as hot as Season 1, but I am man enough to admit that I want to see how all the storylines still play out. That Lynette has it rough as a working mother.”
“Uhh…. What does this have to do with the Texans tanking the last six games of their season?”
“Hell if I know,” he types. “Can I please just go back to typing those silly little quotes so we can carry on with this article? I got Bunko with Ike in fifteen minutes, and he hates it when I’m late. Jerk.”
“Please.”
“Alrighty.” Then he types, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.”
Ah, so perhaps Patton is telling me that time is of the essence if the Texans really do intend to earn the top pick of the draft? “But why do they keep losing these games in such an obvious fashion that makes it look so suspicious they are tanking? Can’t they just suck from the coin flip and be done with it?”
“Never tell people how to do things,” he writes. “Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
“I’ll say. Kris Brown’s kick was a such a hooker that Michael Irvin pimp slapped it when it flew past him.”
Patton typed in one of those frowny emoticons. “Watch what people are cynical about and discover what they lack. And may God have mercy on my enemies because I won’t.”
Yikes. “Ease up, dead dude. I get what you’re saying, but if you were on the Texans, you wouldn’t take a dive for Bush, would you?”
“I fight where I am told, and I win where I fight. If I do my duty, the rest will take care of itself.”
“You said ‘duty’.”
“Alright now you sons a bitches, you know how I feel. I’m off to Bunko. Laters.”
Unlike General Patton, Keith Weiland gave up on Desperate Housewives once Eva Longoria started dating that French guard that plays for the Spurs. 
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