HOUSTON – To some observers, the season-ending, no-contact knee injury to Deshaun Watson absolves Texans owner Bob McNair for trading Duane Brown, one of the NFL’s most respected quarterback protectors.

Good thing we didn’t blow a lot of millions on Brown blocking for Deshaun!

No doubt that’s what the Texans’ front office think tank is thinking.

But the truth is, the Texans will miss Brown now more than ever. Even with wunderkind Watson starting all but two games, they’re 3-5. They’re trying to regroup and stay alive with his replacement, Tom Savage, impersonating a Confederate statue, feet firmly attached to the turf.

So how long will it be before drumbeats begin for Colin Kaepernick? Far as I can tell, of all the quarterbacks not starting in the NFL, he’s the one closest to Watson in skill set, playing style and, most significantly of all, poise on the big stage. He has the quick feet to escape rushers that pour through a sieve of a line.

But of course, Kaepernick is the Worst Distraction Ever. At a time when attention deficit disorder is a national epidemic, his attention is divided between football and social protest. He wants to be Staubach and Gandhi, not necessarily in that order.

The sport has been more comfortable with quarterbacks who consorted with lawbreaking gamblers and drug-dealers and slept with dozens of women not to mention a few adolescents.

Morality is easily defined by what symbols we salute, and so Kaepernick is reviled for kneeling. And I can see why that’s so, living in the state that rejected its great, if overly liquored, founder, Sam Houston, to join the ill-fated southern insurrection.

And while we’re being honest in the privacy of the internet, this giant humidor of a city has a rather shameless history of not giving a damn whether African-Americans get a fair shake from the law and law enforcement. No reason to think that’s about to change.

Most of us Texans who are Caucasian have more urgent concerns, like doing away with the taxation of dead people and making sure we don’t run short of guns in our lifetime. As a state, we love the national anthem, pickup trucks, oil, and Ranch dressing. And football more than anything.

I’ve lived through Love Ya Blue, spending one of the coldest weekends of my life in Pittsburgh when the erstwhile Oilers were playing a conference title game, Earl Campbell vs. the Steel Curtain, Houstonians huddling in a wind-swept lobby with their fight song blaring.

The Astros winning the World Series, marvelous as the feat was and as deserving as those delightful ballplayers are, did not grip Houston the way the Oilers did when they were almost in the Super Bowl.

So in 2017 we’ve watched the Next Generation of our local Star Trek, with Deshaun Watson as another Tyler Rose seizing the public’s admiration, being compared to some who are already enshrined in the Hall of Fame, just as Campbell would be the next Jim Brown, only better mannered.

Deshaun presented more personality than Earl, perhaps more athleticism. But a week ago the season was abruptly canceled, Young Superman crumbles.

And Texans give up.

Not the players. They tried for Savage as hard as they tried for Watson, with whom they were able to compete, quite evenly, against two of the best teams in their sport, on the most intimidating fields of Foxborough and Seattle.

Their doggy-faced coach, Bill O’Brien, is not giving up, though his game plan for the Indianapolis Colts showed none of the imagination he had when Watson was out there. No need now to utilize the speed of Will Fuller. No shift to a jumbo-package running game. And of course, O’Brien once again mismanaged the clock, perhaps costing a win.

Still, the main problem with this team is the owner.

McNair has found himself standing on the wrong side of history, which can happen if you’re 79, or if you’re younger. His sound bite, “we can’t have the inmates running the prison,” is not good to hear, no matter what the context. But it need not define the man. Or his business.

McNair’s apology was more of a denial. It did not salve the wound from his lacerating words.

He could have reconciled with Brown, one of the most influential of his inmates. Instead, the Texans traded their Pro Bowl left tackle to the Seattle Seahawks, whose blueprint for Super Bowl success has credibility.

So from my narrow perspective, I see McNair as another selfish, ignorant, bungling Houston team owner in the lamentable tradition of Bud Adams and Drayton McLane. Always thinking short term bottom line, if thinking at all. And never winning a world championship.

McNair is following the blueprint of the Colts, who were good enough to beat the Savage Texans on Sunday but haven’t beaten many other teams. They’re 3-6.

The Colts, like the Texans, have the best rookie of his class. Their franchise quarterback is Andrew Luck, whom they have not protected with a competent – or expensive – offensive line. The battered Luck has not recovered from last year’s shoulder reconstruction. He may never be what he was.

Watson’s torn ligament is not nearly as threatening. Next season looks as secure for the Texans as it can be for any NFL team. But what about now? Why give up? Why not sign Kaepernick and rally behind the 30-year-old athlete with a Pro Bowl/Super Bowl resume?

“These things are being discussed,” O’Brien said when asked about the team’s evaluation of Kaepernick.

But also discussed was one Josh Johnson, who’s been out of the NFL for four years. He was added to the Texans’ roster on Tuesday. He’s never played well, but he’s no distraction. Until he has to play.

So here’s how to handle distraction: Kaepernick has one lengthy press conference, says everything he wants to say about injustice in America. He closes with: “That’s all I’m going to say about police misconduct or any other social issues. For the rest of the 2017 season I will stand for the anthem, and I will talk only about football. Period.”