The season has been brutal for Houston Texans fans. Yes, Arian Foster was released — and now retired in a uniform that wasn’t Houston’s — but that pain has been relieved by Lamar Miller. Yes, J.J. Watt and Kevin Johnson — and now Derek Newton — are out for the year, but the pain has been alleviated by a surprisingly still strong defense and the return of Duane Brown.

No, the Texans faithful — and you know our faithfulness when we pack out Reliant after the years we have put up with — have had to endure the Brock Osweiler Era. It is one that has gone from bad to worse in a course of seven games.

And it has to end now.

I know what you’re saying. How do you pull the trigger on a guy after seven games? It’s easy. He hasn’t looked like an NFL quarterback in all but six minutes of them, all coming in the finale of that Sunday Night Football game against the Colts. You know, the Colts? The 30th ranked defense in football that everyone forgot Osweiler struggled with for the first 57 minutes of the game? Yea, those Colts.

You see, not many Texans fans and analysts viewed the Osweiler signing as, “Oh glorious day, our franchise is saved by Brock.” It was more like, “This guy can’t be worse than what Bill O’Brien had in 2015 (it would turn out we were wrong).” We tried to make excuses, I even did it, trying to justify that the signing was the right thing to do (turns out those excuses were wrong also).

My problem isn’t that Osweiler stinks right now. Plenty of quarterbacks take time to learn a new system, look at how Matt Ryan played last year under Shanahan and how he has performed this year in the same system. It’s that he seems to have no heart. Two of his losses have been horrendous.

The Patriots loss was awful, but that was typical Texans football in prime time. This was a Patriots team with their third string quarterback, and Osweiler went out there and played reasonably worse than him. 24-for-41, 196 yards and interception. That’s 4.73 yards per attempt. Are you kidding?

This week he was returning to the place that drafted him. John Elway made it very clear that the Broncos were perfectly happy moving on from Osweiler. His former teammates said they wanted to kill him. He has basically been the punchline of many a joke since leaving Denver, and how does he respond?

This guy goes out and plays his worst game of the year! Coming off the Sunday night miracle against the Colts, how are you not pumped up for this game? You have the chance to come out and prove every naysayer wrong, but instead you show the entire world on prime time television that you are exactly who the Broncos said you were.

It makes for almost unwatchable football. I’ve seen a lot of bad Texans football over the years, being a fan from day one, and never once have I wanted to jump ship. I’ve done it once, I won’t do it again.

I grew up a Giants fan. It wasn’t my choice. Most people’s favorite teams aren’t their choices. You are heavily influenced by your surrounding area, your families are always in your ears, you learn the history of the team and the next thing you know  you are wearing New York Giants snow hats with those poofy little balls on top before you even know how to say Lawrence Taylor.

My disdain for the Giants began after the 1991 Super Bowl and came to a head in the 1997 playoffs. I loved Phil Simms. I never really cared for Jeff Hostetler. Simms was 11-3 in that 1990 season when he went down with injury, but they stuck with Hoss because he had the hot hand. Huh? One of the greatest quarterbacks in your organization’s history was 11-3 — that’s a hot hand. The Buffalo Bills would then lose the Super Bowl, gifting the Giants their second ring. Hoss would be anointed the next starting quarterback of the Giants, Bill Parcells walked away and Ray Handley took over. That sentence alone is enough to make you cringe.

But I remained a fan until the ’97 playoffs. I remember it vividly. The Giants let a 19-3 lead slip away and then Chris Callaway infamously muffs the Vikings onside kick, giving them the victory. I vowed right then and there that I could never root for this team again and I didn’t. I took a lot of heat, and so I waited to pick my next team, as I didn’t want people to think I was a bandwagoner. So once the Texans announced they were forming, I joined the Texans Nation, my brother bought me a David Carr jersey for Opening Day and the rest is history.

It’s crazy that I not only dislike the Giants, I pretty much loathe them. Most people know how I feel about Eli Manning, and how incredibly overrated he is. He’s the franchises best quarterback in nearly every statistical category, most will say. No kidding, the Giants were a ground and pound team, known for great running backs and some of the best defenses in history. When was the last time they had anything like that? Oh, and he didn’t win two Super Bowls all by himself, folks. That 2007 Patriots offense was one of the greatest in the HISTORY OF THE GAME, and the Giants defense held them to 14 points. That’s what won them the game. You know which Giants quarterback still holds a Super Bowl record? Phil Simms.

Whoa, sorry, the Giants get me all fired up and off track. My point is, that watching Brock Osweiler makes me feel like those last lingering days as a Giants fan. It’s almost unwatchable football. But I like the rest of the team too much to give up on them. This defense plays their rears off, and barely get a chance to catch their breath. Lamar Miller looks like a great acquisition. DeAndre Hopkins is going to leave town if Brock cant get on the same page as him.

I mean there’s your proof. Did you see what Nuk did last year with Hoyer, T.J. Yates, Brandon Weeden, Ryan Mallet, B.J. Daniels, Cecil Shorts and anyone else they allowed to throw a pass? You know why? Because they knew that all you have to do is get the ball near Nuk and he is a Randy Moss-like receiver that will go up and make a play. Instead Brock constantly under throws him, or leads him into a pack of defenders, nearly killing him every time. NUK IS YOUR FRIEND, BROCK.

A change needs to be made. Whether it’s dumbing down the game plan for this guy to get it or changing the quarterback and seeing what Tom Savage has, something must be done. Osweiler has proven he’s just good enough to beat enough of the mediocre teams on the Texans schedule that they could indeed sneak out the division and into the playoffs. But he also has proved that right now, he is not the guy that is going to get the Texans anywhere in the playoffs once he has to face good teams.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am just angry and jumping the gun. But I watched the likes of David Carr, Sage Rosenfels, and Tony Banks as starting quarterbacks for this franchise. And through all the downs, they never had as many memes as Brock.