Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk surely knew the reaction she would get in Houston when she chose to have her team wear the throwback Oilers uniforms against the Texans last season. Strunk lives 44 miles from Reliant Stadium, and it was her father, Bud Adams, who moved the team from Houston to Tennessee in 1997.
Strunk either didn’t care or wanted to throw the Oilers’ history in the Texans’ face.
So, Houston, especially Texans fans who grew up rooting for the Oilers, perhaps celebrated a little more exuberantly last season after a 19-16 overtime win against the Titans.
The Titans’ uniform decision only increased the ferocity of the rivalry.
Now, Hannah McNair, the vice president of the Texans Foundation and the wife of Texans owner Cal McNair, is throwing gasoline on the already heated rivalry between the teams.
During the Texans’ uniform redesign, the team presented an “H-Town Blue” color that was similar to the Oilers’ “Columbia Blue,” the rights of which belong to Strunk and the Titans. Hannah McNair revealed the league vetoed it.
When asked by SportsRadio 610 where the pushback came from, McNair said, “What do you think?”
Eventually, the sides reached a compromise.
Hannah McNair remained unhappy with the Titans and their fans, who called her “salty” for complaining about Tennessee wearing the Columbia Blue in a game against the Texans.
“Who started it? [The Titans did by] wearing it against us,” she said on the radio, via Cole Thompson of USA Today. “And if anyone was at [last year’s game in Tennessee], their in-house PA was instigating it. It was unbelievable but also wonderful, because we finished the story, OK? So, I mean, who’s salty here?”
The division rivalry is restored, with some bad blood among ownership of the two teams, and Hannah McNair reminded the Titans of who has won the past three games.
“Well, first they need to beat us,” Hannah said about whether it’s one of the NFL’s best rivalries.