Lovie Smith Fired

Man, I usually hate when ppl make things political or racial, especially in a sports forum, but here I’ve been commenting on it. I’m just gonna assume I don’t know enough about the subject and back away… It’s turned into everyone just “knowing” how or why ppl were hired and knowing the ins and outs and details of the FO plans just to support their claims on this issue. No one knows anything, take the optics how you want. I’m just fed up with this team and didn’t feel like adding another reason. But I’ll just back off and let everyone else have at it. Either way, I hate being a fan of this team right now…

 

pretty basic synopsis. None of this is rocket science. When the MSM can see it for what it obviously is, and nobody on the team can come close to refuting without looking foolish, it is what it is.

 

Culley is getting paid 22 million from what I can find published. Don’t see Lovie’s contract but assuming it was 5 million at 3 years, so 15. Sign me up for this opportunity please!

 

Texans CEO Cal McNair says he understands that criticism.

But it wasn’t just the team's record that led McNair and general manager Nick Caserio to fire Smith, McNair said in an exclusive interview with the Houston Chronicle on Monday night.

“We weren’t happy with what was happening,” McNair said. “That’s what led to the decision. I don’t know that you can say we were expecting if we got four wins he would have stayed. I don’t think it was that simple.”

…

When asked whether Smith’s decision to go for the two-point conversion bothered him, McNair said it didn’t.

“I couldn’t believe we got it,” he said. “I thought we were going to overtime. That’s why (the players) are playing. They have a lot of pride. And they want to play next year. To play next year, you need to put good things on film.

“(It's) just not in my nature or any of our nature to ask a team to go out there and not win.”

…

“When you look at the statistics, when you look at the wins, you look at how many home games did we win,” McNair said. “And I know these national guys, they don’t study the team like y’all do. Y’all have watched every game. I doubt they have watched every game. During the middle part of the year, it was hard to watch some of those games. Jacksonville was a hard game to watch.”

…

“But you look at the whole body of work and not just one thing in particular,” McNair said. “Are you convinced that you are seeing the progress you want to see? Are you seeing the players develop? Are you seeing all these different things? Adaptability? Can you play one way one week and another way in another week? Change things at halftime?”

Before Smith was fired, some wondered whether Caserio’s job was in jeopardy. By keeping him and allowing Caserio to be part of the decision to fire Smith and hire a new coach, McNair is giving his general manager a little more leeway — at least for now.

“He has done a good job with personnel,” McNair said. “When I look at these young guys, they are the ones making plays we see on Sunday. And they really are in a bright spot. The draft picks … to work through what we worked through these last few years, as far as trading a certain player and somehow getting the value that we got in trading that player and how that will give us a boost into this space that we’re heading into, puts us in a really good spot.

“His efforts to clean up the cap, work on the roster and do all these things has gotten us to (where) I’m really excited about the future and our opportunities. I give him a lot of credit for doing that.”

…

But one of the biggest questions will be whether those coaches, who are all highly sought after, or any top coach will want to come to Houston given the recent history of firings. McNair said the only thing he and Caserio can do is be honest with the candidates and explain their position when asked.

McNair said he’s committed to putting a winning team on the field and hopes the coaching candidates see that.

“We’re going to be fearless and make hard decisions,” McNair said. “The easy thing would be to not make hard decisions. But that’s not my belief. …We need to challenge ourselves and try to push ourselves to be the best we can be. And if that means making a hard decision and being more involved somewhere to get us a great team on the field and get these fans, which are great fans, something to be in the building cheering for and having more home playoff games, that’s what we want.”

 

So basic i doubt it’s true. If Lovie was hired as a placeholder why wouldn’t they just keep Culley? If Lovie was hired as a placeholder why wouldn’t they just give him a 2 year contract? Why is Caserio now on the hot seat? I find it hard to believe they wanted to pay 2 men somewhere close to $50 million total to work 2 combined years just to be placeholder. I don’t care how rich you are that just doesn’t make sense.

The reason Caserio should be gone is because he genuinely believed that Lovie was the right man for the job.

And im impressed that in a 2 min 18 second clip those 2 managed to bring up race 6 times…

 

But firing a black head coach immediately bring criticism from the national media…much more so than firing a white coach. So they are far from disposable pieces.

Imagine the criticism they would received for hiring Wade Phillips.

 

I don’t think that was the intent either. I don’t think they knew just how bad Lovie would be. We were damn near last in every category on offense AND defense.
They also may have thought Pep was going to continue to develop Mills. But when it became obvious Mills is horrible and we need a new qb, that is not something you want a terrible coach in charge of developing.

mills being so bad we need to draft a qb and want someone qualified to develop the new one is the reason Lovie was gone. (IMO)

 

If anyone thought Lovie was the guy to develop a team and make them good over the next 3-5 years, they should be fired. If anyone thought Mills was going to be the answer at QB, they should be fired.

We can't say both that this team is in a teardown and collecting cap space and picks and is devoid of talent AND that Lovie underperformed as a coach. Lovie did exactly what would be expected of him with this talent. He's not some genius who's going to coach up a team.

 

Cal doesn’t make sense.

- Kept Easterby after he tampers and gets caught.

- Promotes Easterby to the ridiculous GM by Committee.

- Fired the only guy on said committee with experience in contracts.

- Promotes BoB to full time GM. Fires BoB a year later.

- Hires Korn Ferry to conduct a GM search only to hire a guy they didn’t recommend.

- Hires a 65 year head coach who has never been a coordinator or considered a HC candidate.

- Hires another 60+ HC who hasn’t coached a winning team in over a decade.

 

Everyone laughed at the colts for hiring Saturday who was obviously unqualified. Everyone laughed in confusion when we hired Culley because he was unqualified.

I don’t remember anyone laughing or ******** on the Texans when they hired lovie. They may not have thought he was gonna be the guy long term, but don’t act like everyone expected to be 3-13-1 with 29th or worst in every offensive and defensive categories… there are low expectations, and there are holy **** you divebombed through those low expectation on your way to rock bottom…

 

I did. In fact, I was surprised more people weren’t laughing and ******** on them. Lovie Smith was a terrible hire on its own merits. As I said somewhere at the time, he hadn’t won anything since Obama’s second term. That they were forced to do it because someone tackled them before they could hire McCown just made it worse.

 

I'm pretty sure I started a thread on it, much like my this franchise is pathetic thread.

 

I think it's way more plausible that he hired Lovie bc he felt there wasn't a better option. Gannon fell through and McClown was going to cause a riot. Lovie wasn't necessarily hired to be a 1 and done but the way the season worked out they needed to move on. The plan was always to find a long term solution eventually. I don't think Nick thought, "yeah, this is going to be our coach for the next 5 years"

 

You may be right but I think when you are a rebuilding team and fire any colored coach after 1 year, people are going to be like what the heck are you doing and then they did it 2 years in a row. When was the last time a team went into 3rd straight off-season looking for a 3rd new coach?
And I'd be pissed if they brought in Phillips regardless of his skin color

 

Firing two minority coach two years in a row just to give McClown or any white coach regardless of qualification more than one year to coach is gonna trigger folks especially if we are still sht.

Optics is terrible right now for us aside from being one of the most dysfunctional org in the NFL

 

...you've just articulated the issue: they hired a Black head coach they had no intention of keeping long-term. Or even mid-term. Lovie Smith was not given an opportunity here; he was viewed - from the very beginning - as a fall guy. Organizations need to be savvier and more self-aware than that - especially if Lovie is replacing a Black head coach you just fired under the exact same pretense.

Yes; this is absolutely rooted in organizational incompetence. But not recognizing the racial implications of something so blatantly obvious is also a pristine example of white privilege.

They have earned every ounce of criticism they are getting.

 

Were you mad at the Astros for hiring Dusty Baker to get them through a scandal? Was he a hot commodity otherwise?

 

Caserio didn’t want Lovie. He wanted Gannon. Gannon thought he had the job. Cal overruled him.