Before we get into taking a look at what happened Saturday for game 1, let’s just have an introduction – call it a post-first game introduction – to these Houston Roughnecks. Starting with the logo – a logo looking suspiciously like the old Houston Oilers logo so my assumption is the same “designer” who created this also created Trump’s Space Force logo… or is that Space Farce, I forget. Let’s start with…
The Stadium
They play at TDECU stadium, which holds 40,000 rabidly raging Roughneck fans and doubles as the University of Houston Cougars home field. The actual name of the field is the John O’Quinn Field. If you’re think ‘wow, that’s a mighty name for a field’ you’d be sort of correct. John O’Quinn was an infamous Houston litigator who owned 868 cars. How he kept up with chasing ambulances plus handle all those oil changes is beyond me.
TDECU, as everyone knows, stands for Trump’s Dye job is Eerier Close-Up. OK, seriously, it stands for Texas Dow Employees Credit Union. There’s no romance in that acronym.
The field, BTW, is synthetic turf, which isn’t exactly great on one’s leg joints, Nick Holley (we will get to him down the line).
The Management
Prowling the sidelines, or make that doing whatever a Roughneck would do on the sidelines – wrenching their head? I don’t know – is former NFL head coach of the Atlanta Falcons and San Diego Chargers (he never made it to LA) June Jones. June wears two Stetsons as he is both the head coach and GM. His sisters May and April are, from what I understand, not part of the Roughneck organization.
Dynomite Kuhn is the Director of Football Operations. I’m not kidding – Dynomite. I can’t even make a decent joke about it as it’s already funny enough on its own.
The Players
Connor Cook is the starting QB. Well was supposed to be the starting quarterback, but P.J. Walker out-camped the former Michigan State Spartan and stole the job. Along with 4 TD passes, the former Temple Tapir (they’re the Owls, but seriously Tapirs would be way better) Walker had 272 yards in the air against the Los Angeles Wildcats on 23 of 39 passing. P.J. has himself a gun for an arm, and guns are looked at fondly in Texas.
There are three Lewis’ on the Roughnecks roster – Drew, LaTroy and Kahlil. Kahlil caught a TD pass and a 2-point conversion. The other two Lewis’ are linebackers and apparently just caught colds. Right now, the XFL is awful at providing stats. Hopefully better, more professional, efforts will come later. But to be honest, their website is hot garbage.
Jeremiah Johnson is one of the Cornerbacks. Rumor has it he lives up in the Hill Country by himself and comes down on weekends for games. Look up ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ people, don’t expect me to do EVERYTHING for you.
Now to Nick Holley. Holley is one of their running backs. No, his name didn’t get my neck in a twist either, but the fact he’s playing after three torn ACLs and a broken back makes me wonder about his sanity. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP PLAYING FOOTBALL!
Game 1 Recap
Finally, we get to the recap. The first game was Saturday against the Los Angeles Wildcats. It was an ‘historic’ opener (press release words, not mine) and a home game, but no matter. When these two get together you can throw the records away. Seriously I hope you went ahead and tossed them right out the nearest open window. They were both 0-0… for life… at the time.
Well the game came and went, ending with the Roughnecks on top 37-17. Quite the drubbing really, and forced the Wildcats to rename the team the Mildcats. Those 37 points and the fact he let a virtual no-name QB eat his kittens alive for four quarters are the 38 reasons why Pepper Johnson of the Los Angeles Wildcats is now the FORMER defensive coordinator and the first coach to be fired in the XFL.
The Near Future
Next week’s opponent for the undefeated Roughnecks is the equally-undefeated St. Louis Battlehawks (and yes, yet another team to play football in St. Louis who will probably move elsewhere).
See you next week, but in the meantime, work on memorizing one of the many cheers for the Roughnecks:
Roughnecks! Roughnecks!
Our skin, it tingles,
We don’t have dandruff,
We’ve got the shingles!
Fancy Boys Club 