NRG Stadium for a critical AFC South matchup. The Colts said his status was up in the air.Hilton knew he couldn’t possibly miss a game at a place where he’s had more success than any receiver since the stadium opened in 2002.He played Chris Lindstrom Jersey , and in Indianapolis’ 24-21 win over Houston, Hilton had 199 receiving yards and Andrew Luck threw for 399 yards and two touchdowns.Article continues below ...“This is my second home, man,” Hilton said, laughing. “This is my second home. I don’t know. Every time I come here, I just go off. I don’t know what it is.”Hilton entered as the all-time leader in receiving yards per game at NRG Stadium with 122.3 yards and finished Sunday just shy of 200 yards with nine catches on 12 targets. In seven career games in Houston, Hilton has topped 100 yards four times, with three of those for more than 175 yards.The Colts (7-6) snapped a nine-game winning streak by the Texans (9-4), trimming Houston’s lead over the AFC South to two games with three remaining.Luck said throughout the week, the Colts were seeing things in the Texans’ defense that led them to believe Hilton’s “speed and maneuverability” could again be a key to success in Houston.“Once we got that first one, it was like, ‘OK, here we go,'” Luck said. “When T.Y.’s in the zone, he’s in a zone, man. It’s fun to play with him and it’s an honor to play with him.”Hilton’s performance gave him his 11th 150-yard game, setting a franchise record. He has also topped 800 receiving yards for a seventh consecutive season, the longest active streak in the NFL.The Colts started slow and didn’t have a first down until early in the second quarter. They went to a no-huddle offense and found momentum on that drive before a pass from Luck was tipped by Kareem Jackson and intercepted by Andre Hal.Indianapolis finally ended a lengthy scoring drought after a 60-yard completion to Hilton set up a 4-yard touchdown run by Marlon Mack.The Colts entered Sunday having allowed just 14 sacks, second only to New Orleans. Houston’s usually menacing pass rush was largely neutralized with just two sacks from J.J. Watt and Christian Covington after being held without a sack against Cleveland last week.“They did a good job, they played good football http://www.lionsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-jahlani-tavai-jersey ,” Watt said. “T.Y. obviously had a huge day. We knew going in that’s a guy we had to stop and we didn’t. That’s on everybody. Luck did a good job spreading it around, guys got open and he found them. We have to play better.”Indianapolis’ defense, on the other hand, gave Houston fits both in the passing and running game. The Colts sacked Watson five times for a loss of 41 yards and held Houston’s rushing offense to just 89 yards on 25 carries.“There was a confidence all week,” Reich said. “What was best about this was, we expected to win this game. We really did.”Watson had 267 yards passing and 35 yards rushing. Tight end Ryan Griffin led Houston receivers with 80 yards on five catches, while Hopkins was held to 36 yards on four catches.“We’re good. I mean, it’s the NFL — every game is tough,” Watson said. “It’s tough to go on a two-game winning streak.We went on nine. Today it ended, but it’s a new task to put this game behind us. Next week, we’re 0-0 and we’ll try to get 1-0. It’s no panic button for us. We’ll keep moving and try to flip the script next week and get back to the winning column.”Houston cut Indianapolis’ lead to 24-21 with a 7-yard touchdown pass from Deshaun Watson to DeAndre Hopkins with less than three minutes remaining. With the Colts facing a critical third-and-1 at midfield, Luck drew Jadeveon Clowney offside to secure a first down and the win.Clowney refused to comment when approached by reporters.Houston scored first on a 3-yard touchdown run by running back Alfred Blue. The Colts then scored 17 straight before Houston opened the third quarter with a long drive to a 1-yard touchdown run on a direct snap to Lamar Miller to cut the Colts’ lead to 17-14.The Colts took a 14-7 lead late in the first half on a 14-yard pass from Luck to Eric Ebron. It was Luck’s fourth straight touchdown pass to a tight end, three of which went to Ebron.Luck had not thrown a touchdown pass to a non-tight end since the Nov. 18 win over Tennessee until the third quarter, when he found receiver Zach Pascal for a 12-yarder to put the Colts up 24-14.Indianapolis had a 54-yard field goal by Adam Vinatieri as time expired in the second quarter to take a 17-7 halftime lead. During Houston’s winning streak, the team never trailed at halftime.“I don’t like what happened today, but I’m fine with where we are,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said. “This is the NFL. We did not do a good enough job today. The Colts did a much better job than us. There’s a lot of football left.”PLAYOFF RACEIndianapolis will host the Cowboys and Giants before closing out the season in Tennessee, while Houston visits the Jets and Eagles before hosting Jacksonville in the finale.HOPKINS’ MILESTONEWith a 10-yard reception in the third quarter, Texans receiver DeAndre Hopkins topped 7,000 receiving yards in his career. At 26 years Kyler Murray Jersey , 6 months, 3 days, Hopkins became the second-youngest player in NFL history to surpass 7,000 yards, behind only Larry Fitzgerald who was 26 years, 3 months and 20 days when he reached the mark.EBRON IN THE END ZONEWith his 12th receiving touchdown of the season, Colts tight end Eric Ebron set a franchise record for the position. The record was previously held by Dallas Clark. Ebron also has one rushing touchdown on the season. In four seasons with the Lions, Ebron totaled 11 touchdown catches and one rushing touchdown.ASTROS IN ATTENDANCEHouston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, infielder/outfielder Marwin Gonzalez and pitcher Lance McCullers were all in attendance, with Bregman wearing a custom No. 2 Texans jersey with his name on the back. Bregman also briefly played catch with Watt on the sidelines during pre-game warmups.INJURIESTexans receiver and kick returner Deandre Carter left in the first quarter and was later ruled out with a concussion. . Colts right guard Mark Glowinski was carted to the locker room in the second quarter with an ankle injury.UP NEXTColts: Host the Cowboys next Sunday.Texans: Visit the Jets next Saturday. George Halas wanted an NFL team in Dallas, and in 1960 the influential founder of the Chicago Bears helped Clint Murchison get one.Less than 10 years later, a league that for decades piggybacked geographically on baseball went from 16 to 26 franchises in a merger with the rival American Football League, making plans to get even bigger on its way to replacing America’s pastime as the country’s favorite sport.Television fueled the success of both leagues in the decade before their 1970 merger, and expansion that pushed pro football into the deep South grew out of assurances from then-Commissioner Pete Rozelle that AFL franchises could stay in their existing cities.“The availability of NFL games on free television even to this day is the single most important factor in the popularity and expansion of our sport,” says Joe Browne, the league’s longest-serving senior executive ever.Within 20 years of the NFL’s birth in 1920, the league settled into what is considered its original core of teams: Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Green Bay http://www.arizonacardinalsteamonline.com/byron-murphy-jersey , New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington.Before 1950, the only team with staying power south of Washington was in Los Angeles — and that was in part because Cleveland Rams owner Dan Reeves threatened to sue if he wasn’t allowed to chase the Hollywood lights after his team won the championship in 1945, says Joe Horrigan, the NFL historian and recently retired Pro Football Hall of Fame executive director.Between the Rams’ move in 1946 and the debut of the Cowboys, along with the relocation of the Chicago Cardinals to St. Louis in 1960, the only addition outside the NFL’s traditional geographic footprint was San Francisco in 1950 after the All-America Football Conference folded.During those first 40 years, the comings and goings of franchises often were tied to baseball because of existing stadiums, Horrigan explains.“Baseball was already established there and (NFL teams) could play in their stadiums and oftentimes even borrowed their names to create the illusions that they were affiliated with the baseball teams,” he says. “The league was growing its own identity still and hadn’t built a football stadium yet.”The additions of the Cowboys and Cardinals didn’t change that. Dallas first played in the Cotton Bowl, a stadium built for and made famous by college football, another sport more popular with U.S. fans before the NFL’s surge.The Cardinals happened to have the same nickname as the baseball team at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, with baseball ownership leading the bid for a new stadium that opened six years after the football team’s move.Even the Minnesota Vikings — an expansion partner with the Cowboys after the NFL swooped in on ownership expecting to get an AFL team — used a baseball-first stadium. They debuted in 1961 at Metropolitan Stadium, built in hopes of attracting an MLB team. The Twins moved from Washington the same year.Browne says the thirst for more NFL teams led Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams to go after NFL expansion teams in the 1950s. When the renegade owners were rebuffed, they formed the eight-team AFL.“The argument could be made either way that the announced start of the AFL resulted in these two teams,” Browne says of the Cowboys and Vikings.“However, those two cities and several others were being discussed by the NFL for expansion for several years prior to 1960.”To help the 1966 merger agreement meet antitrust concerns in Congress, Rozelle promised that an NFL team already lined up in Atlanta and an AFL team in Miami could stay in those cities. The Falcons and Dolphins hit the field in ’66.About the same time, the league was interested in New Orleans because of the popularity of high school and college football in the South. And the Saints provided early signs of NFL teams standing on their own Andy Isabella Jersey , knowing the football-only Louisiana Superdome was being planned. They began play in 1967.Browne notes that a national survey then showed for the first time that pro football was listed as the fans’ favorite sport over baseball.“However, the NFL could not force expansion at too fast a rate because they wanted to maintain a competitive balance on the field and not have a watered-down product,” he says.Still, the AFL added Cincinnati in 1968, with former Browns boss Paul Brown owning the Bengals.That was it for new franchise for another six years.Enter Tampa Bay and Seattle.Tampa already had built a smaller stadium that would house the Buccaneers, who were approved in 1974 for a debut two years later. Seattle, approved on roughly the same timeline, built the Kingdome hoping for football and baseball franchises. The Seahawks were the first team to play in it, and the Mariners soon followed.The 28-team makeup lasted nearly two decades. It worked because the NFL far outpaced others sports in revenues and popularity.That, naturally, didn’t mean the league had no interest in further growth. Those 28 owners knew that expansion fees would reach nine figures compared with the $16 million the Bucs and Seahawks paid to join the party.And they did. When Jacksonville and Carolina (located in Charlotte) were accepted as new members, it cost each franchise’s owner $140 million. The Jaguars and Panthers began play in 1995 and both appeared (and lost) in their conference title games the next season.After Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore in 1996 in one of the most contentious franchise switches in football history, then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue promised Cleveland an expansion team. He made good on that, and in 1999 the new version of the Browns was born — at a cost of $530 million.A mere four years later, Houston became the 32nd team, and the Texans’ fee was all the way up to $700 million.While eight divisions with four teams provides exemplary balance, the question of whether another round of expansion — perhaps internationally to London, Mexico City or Canada — has been raised. That could lead to a $1 billion entry fee.Browne says late Tampa Bay owner Malcolm Glazer actually suggested that figure when the new Browns were added 20 years ago.“Some of the other owners smiled at Malcolm and thought that might be several hundred million too much,” Browne says. “None of those owners in 2019 are laughing at that dollar amount for the next NFL expansion, whenever that might be.”Horrigan figures the league would have expanded in the 1960s and ’70s without the AFL threat Clelin Ferrell Jersey , but he’s sure the rival league’s viability forced the issue. The Cowboys were an answer to Hunt’s Dallas Texans, who became the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963 after winning the AFL championship. Adams’ Houston Oilers stayed put through the merger before moving to Tennessee in 1997.“The world was ready for more franchises,” Horrigan says. “And the league was pretty comfortable with the status quo.”It’s unlikely that a rival league can disrupt the status quo again, Horrigan says. The most notable attempts have been spring football, with dismal results.The Alliance of American Football folded in April in the middle of its first season, nearly 20 years after wrestling magnate Vince McMahon’s XFL lasted one season. McMahon is trying again in 2020. The USFL was the closest thing to a success, surviving three seasons in the mid-1980s.“The NFL looked at it and said, ‘Well, if there’s a demand, it’s reasonable that they could succeed in that league,'” Horrigan said of the USFL. “The original founders were really focused on that. Then a couple of more aggressive owners, Donald Trump being one, came along and really were just looking for a cheap way into the NFL.“They felt that they could force a merger and just merge in. So these expansion fees will not only prevent that sneaking, backdoor entrance into the league, but it will control who you have as your owners.”Plus, those NFL power brokers don’t have to worry about competing with baseball — or any other sport — these days.
