McNair: Worst Owner in Houston, Ever.

Bob will hand it off to Cal;
Rick will have a forever job;
8-8 forever; Houston Texans: We're not terrible but we aren't good either!

 

I'm glad I'm the first to say this and I hate to come across as rude...but this is stupid

 

Rude? Hell that's just about the nicest way to say it.

 

I don't know who John Royal is, but I think he is a poor writer. To say that McNair is not criticized is ridiculous. I haven't heard people say the Texans are the ideal franchise. I'm not aware that McNair doesn't interfere with the coach or GM. And I strongly disagree that McNair doesn't care about winning. That's just silly.

Whenever I hear someone say that McNair only cares about the money, I just have to laugh. McNair was a extremely wealthy before he ever bought the Texans. You really think McNair needs a sports franchise to make money?

You can certainly criticize some of the decisisions he's made. But I think he's trying as hard as he can to build a winning team.

And to top it off. The writer doesn't even know the difference between worse and worst.

 

I don't think Mcnair is a bad guy, but I'm not a big fan of his new skinhead look. It alienates many of the fans and players alike. Especially with everything that is going on with the Confederate flag and racial tensions in this country.

 

I think he cares and wants to win but he doesn't know how to evaluate talent on the football level. Takes chances on mediocre people and they give him well... Mediocre results.

 

If you actually think McNair's post-chemo appearance alienated fans and players, I don't know what to tell you.

 

It's sad that I'm only like 70% sure that this is sarcasm. Given the ridiculous hot takes that fly around on this board, you can never be sure what is a sarcastic joke and what is just someone being really, really stupid.

 

Some of you have really short memories.

Ford Motor Company Credit literally only viewed the Astros as an asset.

John McMullen wasn't much better, never even spent time in Houston and sent Nolan Ryan packing to bring you Jim Clancy.

Bud Adams was that cheapskate relative with a bad toupe who gets drunk at a wedding and makes a boorish fool of himself - but the wedding lasted for 30 years. Some of the penny pinching he was notoriously embarrassing in a way that McNair couldn't emulate if he tried.

Take this team, repeat it for ten years in a row, then get McNair a cheap ass dead muskrat for his head, a 100%polyester baby blue suit, get him ****faced drunk and have him flip off the entire city on national TV from the owners box.

http://www.amazon.com/Loser-Takes-All-Football-Business/dp/1563524325

Seriously, come back and talk to me when someone publishes a book about the many ways McNair has screwed everything up over and over again.

McNair is nothing compared to the many iterations of horrible this city has had.

 

I asked the question in another thread, how can you tell if an owner wants to win or not? What actions does he have to take?

Can you tell it by if the team wins or not? That if a team isn't winning that the owner must not care? Because that sounds really stupid. That if a team has a losing season, it must be because the owner doesn't care.

Despite popular opinion, we haven't put up with losing. Capers took over an expansion franchise. They improved in years 2 and 3 and when the team flopped in year 4 he was fired. Our record got better every year under Kubiak (except for 2010) and when the bottom fell out he was fired too.

We'll see what happens with O'Brien. I don't think he'll necessarily be fired this year (though if the team keeps looking like this I wouldn't rule it out), but I don't think McNair is going to put up with another season like this or even be satisfied with incremental increases over many seasons.

And advocates of the "McNair doesn't want to win" narrative like the author of the article LOVE to bring up the franchise record of 89-124. But that number is skewed because of the difficulty of being an expansion franchise. Especially after the league made it harder on the Browns and Texans after the early success of the Panthers and Jags as expansion teams. And still being a young franchise, those years just trying to become established are a huge chunk of our games and distort things. The 4 years Capers was coach represents 30% of our history. Anyway, if you look at the record after the Capers era, which is a fair way to assess them since they had a chance to get established, we're 71-78. Not great by any means, but not as lopsided as some would have you believe.

Does firing a bunch of people mean the owner wants to win? I guess you could say it does, but it's not exactly a recipe for success. The Browns and Raiders fire their coach every other year and they never get better results. Yeah, they probably do care about winning, but their actions aren't exactly helping them reach that goal.

Now, the Texans aren't the Patriots, Steelers, or Packers. But in terms of how they operate, what their philosophy is, they're closer to those teams than they are the Browns or Raiders. And that's the way you'd want it to be.

McNair is absolutely right that continuity is a big part of being successful in the league. Of course, the caveat is that you have to hire the right people. But I think it's been proven that having a quick trigger doesn't translate to winning. If you make a mistake, own up to it, but if it becomes a habit, that's not a good philosophy.

Again, we have to see how OB plays out. But Capers and Kubiak were fired at the appropriate time. The team had improved under Capers every year and then he was fired when he went 2-14. Same with Kubes. We went to the playoffs the 2 years before he was fired. Some wanted him gone after 2010 but I think 2011-12 proved that keeping him was the right decision. Hell, after what he did in Baltimore and what he's doing now in Denver, you could argue that he shouldn't have even been fired at all.

So I don't think you can assume, based on anything we've done as a franchise, that McNair doesn't care about winning. You can fault him for bad decisions. You can blame him for the OB hire if it doesn't work out (though the hire was nearly universally approved of by fans and experts alike) and blame him for keeping Rick Smith as GM, but making bad decisions doesn't mean lack of a will to win. Again, I'm sure the Browns owners want to win and is why they clean house every other year, but they're not exactly know for making good decisions.

It really seems like a simplistic, reactionary idea without any actual evidence to support it.

"Is the team winning?"
"Not right now."
"I guess the owner doesn't care about winning."
"We almost went to the playoffs last year. And he just fired a coach who went 2-14."
"Yeah, but we're not winning right now so he obviously doesn't care."
"What about a couple of years ago when we went to the playoffs and a couple of playoff games."
"Oh, I guess he cared about winning then. But he doesn't care about winning now because we're not winning now."



So I ask, what exactly does an owner have to do to indicate he cares about winning?

 

Honestly, the quote J.R. put up raises some very good points. Points that I've been thinking about the past several years, watching all three major teams constantly and occasionally listening to sports radio in this city.

McNair and the Texans almost have no "pressure" to win or put a winning product on the field.

Sure, they can say that they are doing their "due diligence" to put "great" talent on the field every year but when has it ever equaled to anything worthwhile? Look, 14 years in the league and all they have to show is a couple of wild card games? Their overall record is 89-124, 35 games under 0.500. Its unacceptable what the Texans have done in their history, especially considering the continual support they get from this city every year.

I mean sure, the Texans have been pretty unlucky, especially in recent years but luck is not always based on chance. You have to be prepared to be lucky and the Texans never seem to be prepared to get lucky. Just look at the Rockets and Morey's acquisition of James Harden. Sure he was lucky that OKC wanted to deal Harden when they did, but he was prepared to jump on that opportunity. The Texans are notoriously for being reactive in certain situations when teams that are lucky are usually the teams that are proactive.

Same goes for being unlucky; sometimes its not you being unlucky but rather you doing a poor job of being prepared. And, the Texans have been largely unlucky for so long that it can't just be bad luck but them doing a poor job.

How many 2-6 round draft picks has this front office messed up on these past 6 or 7 years? Those middle draft picks are essential for building and maintaining a good football team. Most of the 2-6 round draft picks from the last 2 years aren't even on the team anymore!

How many times has this team done these; horrible free agent signings (recently Reed, possibly Wilfolk), terrible extensions (Cushings after two major knee surgeries, Schaub after his big injury) and letting go of quality players at key positions? It's no wonder the Texans are always lack of talent; they either overpay and extend bad or injury prone players and let go of player they should have kept.

Yet, who is being held accountable for doing a such a poor job? I thought Rick Smith should have been fired after the latest 2-14 season, but he probably has the best job security of any NFL GM in the league right now! It just puzzling that a GM can keep his job for 8 years running without any significant success.

It all comes down to McNair.

I'm positive McNair has enough pride in himself that he wants a winning organization and wants to compete for Super Bowl Rings every year. I don't doubt that for a second.

But I do doubt that he is trying his hardest to make it happen and make it happen as soon as possible. As long as the Texans are raking in millions of dollars per year and are still worth over a billion dollars, what incentive does he have to make the team as good as it can possibly be? Because if he really did try his hardest, the Texans would not be in this position every year. As much as he might want a great team, he doesn't need a great team to continue to make a huge profit off this team.

The Texans are the only team in this city with that luxury. They have sold out every game in their existence and will continue to sell out every game, indefinitely. They can literally put crap on the field and people will still buy tickets to the game and buy merchandise every season.

The Rockets and Astros are totally different stories. If either team is going to have a down year, you can pretty much forget even a half full arena or stadium. Even in years they are good, people rarely show up to games unless its a major city or rival coming into town i.e. Lakers, Yankees, etc. Both teams just had their best seasons in decades, yet only in the playoffs were the crowds in full attendance and getting involved in the festivities.

Its sad and pitiful that the Rockets and Astros have to be absolutely stellar for this city to get behind them, while the Texans can continue to be mediocre to get even more support. But this is the case, which is why I can't see why the Texans or McNair would every go out of their way to be better than anything they have been their whole existence.

 

I never understood why people say McNair only cares about money. If you see him during interviews, he really does want to win.

He has signed all the right guys at the time, that most agree were the right man for the job.

He's done all the right moves, he's just been very unfortunate of not having any franchise qbs worthy of being taken #1 during the first year and two 2-14 seasons.

The only move I question is keeping Rick smith. Smith isn't terrible gm but he's far from great. I hope mcnair fires him in the offseason.


I'm just glad we don't have al Davis or jerry jones as our owner.

 

Al Davis and Jerry Jones won Super Bowls and were innovative owners.

 

They're both considered a joke after their glory years (80's-90's). They're the type of owners that want to be in control of everything from coaching, GM and drafting.

They're crazy, senile old men.

I remember hearing about al Davis being dead set on drafting Jamarcus Russell even though his scouts, coach and gm strongly advised him against it.

Jerry jones on the other hand just wants to make the headlines. He signs players questionable character.

Sure he won Super Bowls during the 90's, but according to jimmy Johnson, jerry had nothing to do with it.

 

They're both considered a joke after their glory years (80's-90's). They're the type of owners that want to be in control of everything from coaching, GM and drafting.

They're crazy, senile old men.

I remember hearing about al Davis being dead set on drafting Jamarcus Russell even though his scouts, coach and gm strongly advised him against it.

Jerry jones on the other hand just wants to make the headlines. He signs players questionable character.

Sure he won Super Bowls during the 90's, but according to jimmy Johnson, jerry had nothing to do with it.

 

Even if you choose to go with your assessment, that's still much more than what Texans have done.

The Raiders and Cowboys have legacies, what's the Texan's legacy? It's just the team that replaced the Oilers.

 

Raiders and Cowboys have been around since 1960. Their "legacies" predate the Texans existence. How is that a fair comparison? That's like asking what the Astros legacy was in 1975.

 

I guess my question would be how much closer are we to the Patriots, Packers or Steelers than we are the bottom feeders? Is the reason being because we're sticking with coaches? I would've hated if we had kept Richard Smith, Frank Bush, Marciano, and never gotten Wade.

Like what's been said, we don't have a legacy, so all we've got to judge on is our record and personnel history. It's been 9 years with some Denver prospect GM and we're more amorphous blob franchise than philosophy based team. Any semblance we've had to being a smash mouth team has come on the backs of Watt and Foster, and credit to the organization for finding them. But the defense looks like it reverted back to 2010, our OL is a patchwork of guys, and our impending future after Foster currently consists of Blue and Grimes. I do like Polk, but partly because he came from a team who had shown a knack for finding or developing RB talent.

 

This.

The Maloof family were crappy owners as well. IIRC they let restricted free agent Moses Malone go.