The Houston Texans and Cincinnati Bengals played a football game Monday night — a football game that was, objectively speaking, horrible.
The Texans defeated the Bengals 10-6 to end any hopes Cincinnati had of going undefeated. In a season of crapbag football games — particularly on Monday nights — this one might have been the crappiest.
The night wasn’t a total loss, though. After the game, Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, who’s never shy when the red light comes on, did a postgame interview with ESPN’s Lisa Saunders, and Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton was in the crosshairs.
Watt explained it was the Texans’ goal to make Dalton — whose red hair has earned him the nickname “Red Rifle” — the “Red Ryder BB Gun.”
Naturally, Dalton eventually caught wind of those comments and didn’t seem to be a fan.
“It’s disappointing for one of the best players in this league to come out and say something like that, so that’s all I’m going to say about that,” Dalton told reporters, per ESPN.com. “He’s a good player, but for him to be one of the best in this league and to show that integrity, it shows what he’s about, and that’s disappointing.”
Talk about much ado about nothing. First off, Watt’s trash talk wasn’t even that bad. Sure, if you only take out the Red Ryder comment, it looks (kind of?) mean. But still. It was pretty harmless, and if we’re being honest, lame. Which, coincidentally, pretty much sums up Watt — at least away from the football field.
But for Dalton to get legitimately upset about a stupid comment like that is just a little bit petty. Sure, he was upset after losing the (crappy) football game. But if he and his offense was able to find the end zone just once against a Houston team that had allowed 25 points per game entering Monday night, it would have been just a crappy game without a postgame patty-cake war of words.
Thumbnail photo via Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports Images
