Keep Kubiak/fire Marciano/draft defense heavy

Kill it all with fire and keep Watt.

 

He also makes terrible head coaching decisions. The biggest thing that got the Texans over the initial hump to being a contender was bringing in Wade, which was forced upon him. Starting Keenum was forced upon him. If they fire Marciano, that will have been forced upon him. He's terrible at seeing and/or being willing to address problems on the team, which seems like the #1 job of the head coach. He's an OC that's stuck in a head coaching job.

 

Or he's a coach that shouldn't also have the biggest say on personnel as well as staff hires, which prior to Wade's hiring he was.

Most successful organizations have a strong GM that oversees all football operations. The Texans tried to do that with Casserly, and decided not to go that route again with the second regime.

Rick Smith, the figure-head, doesn't have enough experience nor the longevity in football to have his own "visions" or his own "system" for building a team.

 

Certainly true - but the Keenum thing goes beyond that too. He has loyalty issues to a fault where it hurts the team. I don't know if he's improved in the clock management stuff, but used to be a big issue as well.

All in all, what can we say he does really well that's truly a head coach's responsibility as opposed to one that would normally done by an OC?

 

He has definitely not improved in the area of clock management. We've seen that this season.

 

Kubiak only played Case when forced to by injury. What is impressive about the fact that the head coach couldn't see the problem or wouldn't fix it until it was forced on him? Playcalling is the job of an OC, not a head coach. My question is what makes him a good head coach?

If "they play hard" is all there is, that's not much justification for all the negatives that come with it. Any decent coach should have his players playing hard.

 

Players love him? He gets the guys to play hard, and doesn't put up with character issues? The Texans players have been pretty professional over the last several years... they haven't had to deal with as many off the field issues as other franchises.

I mean, you can say this about most head coaches... what does Chuck Pagano do that is so vital to the Colts' success? What does John Harbaugh (Baltimore) do?

You're not going to see most of the day-to-day stuff that a head coach deals with... and the way a coach handles the day-to-day stuff is just as important as what he does on game days.

Kubiak deserves more criticism because he does call the plays, and he does have full control over the offensive personnel. Its a results business, and the results are not there right now (regardless of the QB switch, or lack thereof... which wasn't this team's only problem).

 

Their teams win - this isn't an issue if the Texans were winning games. No one suggested firing Kubiak the last 2 years. But if they aren't winning, what is the justification for keeping him? If Pagano had been the coach of the Colts for 8 years and won two playoff games and was 2-6 this year in a season that was supposed to be a Superbowl type year, they'd probably be looking at firing him too.

(Harbaugh also made the controversial decision to fire his OC halfway in the latter part of last season, and they won the Superbowl. Compare that to the Marciano situation.)

 

If they want to keep Kubiak they should fire Rick Smith and bring in an independent GM/Team President type who has total control. Then give Kubiak a year where someone else is in charge and fire him if he fails after that.

As far as Keenum, if the season ended today I would still spend a 1st round pick on a QB. Luckily the season doesn't end today and we have enough time to actually find out if Keenum is legit or if he's on a hot streak.

 

I did. At least after the first one. I knew he WOULDN'T be fired, but I've always said that the problems with Kubiak as a head coach did not disappear when they won all those games.

He has significant, fundamental issues as a head coach, leader of the team that hold us back.

 

So Kubiak's personnel decision making is as good as the average fan, who hasn't seen any of the tape or the hundreds of hours of work on the practice field. Is that an argument for Kubiak?

Keenum may end up sucking for the reason for the season for all we know - I'm not at all saying he's the answer. But everyone could see the problems and limitations with Schaub, going back before this year and Kubiak never seriously considered any alternative - whether it be Yates, Keenum, or some free agent out there - until he was absolutely forced into it by injury. You can see in these two weeks how limiting Schaub was - why wasn't it ever addressed before now?

That's the perfect example of the terrible decision making philosophy of this organization. Also not an argument for Kubiak.

 

More importantly, they need to play him enough to generate film that defenses will then game-plan against.

In this league, more than any other sport, teams rely on film to develop game plans to shut down the opponent.

Its how you re-adjust, after the initial adjustments have been made that determine if you got longevity.

Belicheck's defense will probably be the biggest test for him, as he routinely will take away the plays that your team relies upon to succeed... and if you don't have any backup plans, you lose.

 

If the Texans keep doing what they are doing they will end up with Jadaveon Clowney.

 

Fair enough - I guess the better way to put it was that no one was realistically thinking the organization would fire Kubiak, and I think most people thought he'd earned another season with each of the last two seasons. I agree that the fundamental issues were always there, and I think it's why many people felt like the Texans had a ceiling with Kubiak that was short of the Superbowl.

 

Can Clowney played 3-4 OLB?

I'd love to keep the 3-4 but have a true hell raiser on the outside when we are in that formation that cal also put the hand in the dirt when we play the more traditional 4-3 look.

I do think that is the biggest problem right now with Wade's defense. There is NOBODY on this team that is a hell raiser as pass rusher outside of Watt. As good as Watt is, an interior linemen is too easy to double team and scheme against if you aren't getting a great rush from the outside.

 

So since the team is losing now, vs. last year, did Kubiak magically forget how to coach? Did John Harbaugh suddenly become a mediocre leader just a few months after his team won the Super Bowl?

Coaches are damn important in this league, and they get hired/fired based simply on wins/losses... but there's a lot more that goes into it than anybody here knows or is willing to admit.

I won't say Kubiak is a bad head coach, but he's certainly not one of the best ones out there. He's not going to game-plan to exploit a team's weakness... nor is he going to make many in-game adjustments to fix something that's not working.

He typically needs an off-season + a few regular season weeks to figure out what works... and once that stops, the team usually struggles.

That's probably true of most coaches/systems that have been around too long... with the exception of Belicheck. If you're not re-inventing yourself every 3 or so years, the league figures you out... and you get exposed.