Jags owner Shad Khan open to swapping home dates with Texans

Posted by Darin Gantt on August 30, 2017, 6:00 PM EDT
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There’s been no word from the league on the status of the Week One Texans home game against the Jaguars.

But if the league wanted to flip the home games between the AFC South rivals, Jaguars owner Shad Khan would not be opposed to it.

Khan issued a statement saying he was prepared to follow the league’s lead on any decision regarding the Sept. 10 game currently scheduled for Houston.

“The Jacksonville Jaguars will support whatever scheduling decision the NFL makes,” Khan said. “What’s most important to me and everyone in Jacksonville isn’t where we’ll play the Texans on Week One, but that the City of Houston and its people recover quickly, safely and successfully.”

The two teams play each other in Jacksonville on Dec. 17, and swapping those dates seems like a reasonable proposal.

It might create some competitive advantage issues (giving the Texans three straight home games to close the season and three straight road games for the Jaguars), but Khan’s right in that that’s not a major concern.

With the flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey causing widespread damage in Houston, local authorities will have much more important things to do than make sure 70,000 people get in and out of a football game safely.

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21 responses to “Jags owner Shad Khan open to swapping home dates with Texans”

  1. Thats pretty big of him. As a Jags fan, I really enjoy the December game tho, The bank is a great stadium to be in during a December game. But as a human, Houston has bigger issues so I would understand the swap.

  3. Obvious solution. If the NFL had a commissioner with a functioning brain-stem this would already be announced along with a 8-figure donation from the NFL head office.

  5. As a Jags fan even if we had any semblance of a chance at the post season after week 2(we don’t), this is the right thing to do. Hope Houston has a speedy recovery.

  6. Given the backlash that the Texas Rangers received, this is a no-brainer decision. However, Mr Khan did the right thing even if it is obvious. Now the question is will the well beloved commissioner do the right thing.

  9. Goodell is a festering scumbag. This should have been announced 3 days ago. What is he waiting for, jerrah to bless the move? Houston has way bigger problems than hoping the flood waters go down so they can see their football team.

  11. With the competitive advantage given to the Titans here, in sure they are pulling the strings behind the scene and that donation to Watt’s charity was a smoke screen to cover what they are really up to.

  12. People outside of Jacksonville have no idea what a terrific owner and person Mr. Khan is…he’s done a remarkable job there with the stadium renovations (now including an attached 7500 seat amphitheater/concert venue) and the London connection.

  13. The right thing to do is to move the game, either to Jacksonville or a neutral site. It is not right to be playing a game right smack in the middle of where humans are going through so much. Not one resource should be allocated to managing handling a game when it could be used to help families effected by this disaster.

    It is honorable that the Texans still want to play there, but this decision should come from the league and there is only 10 days left so the decision needs to be made now.

  14. Mr. Kahn has become a bit of a sports media darling as of late, so the pessimist in me says this statement was calculated to play into that newfound admiration. That said, he still deserves credit because it is the right thing to do, as well as a way to put some pressure on Park Ave. to follow suit. Good for him. Now let’s see if Bob McNair makes a public statement of support for it. There’s a cadre of public employees required to be on hand for any NFL game… wouldn’t it be better to have them focusing on helping the residents of Houston rather than concerned with rowdy fans in the nosebleeds drinking too much or a grill catching fire during tailgating?

    Ol’ Roger should have made this call before now.

  16. Guarantee shad asked for the draft or the super bowl in the near future for doing this, which I can see being a fair trade off from his perspective. Either will bring a ton of money into jacksonville and highlight all the upgrades he is doing to Everbank.

  18. The Texans are playing the game at home!!!! That is what they want, that is what HoUSton wants!!!! That is what HoUSton needs!!!! So everybody needs to stop trying to move it!

  19. Honestly it seems like we are really late in the game here. This should already be said and done. Just make it happen already Goodell. Houston sadly won’t be ready for trivial things like football anytime soon

  20. Jags can play 16 straight hen games and play they’d still be at a competitive disadvantage. Blake Chokels ring a bell?

  21. Don’t let this distract you from the fact that Joel Osteen hesitated to help out Houston. He locked the doors to his mega church then lying that it’s flooded when it wasn’t. Internet blasted him and made him change his mind. Good job you!

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