https://www.houstonchronicle.com/te...to-Vikings-was-tipping-point-for-15623521.php Cal McNair fired Bill O’Brien because the Texans are 0-4 and the most disappointing team in the NFL through the first quarter of the season. If the Texans had beaten Minnesota, O’Brien would still have his job and a chance to go 2-3 with Jacksonville coming to NRG Stadium, but McNair didn’t like the direction the team was headed after another miserable performance in a season that began with such high expectations. O’Brien and Easterby had disagreements about the way the personnel operation was being run. The organization was being divided the way it had been when O’Brien and general manager Rick Smith had their disputes. Although McNair hasn’t decided about how he wants to restructure the football side of the organization, Easterby will play a key role and will be part of the interview process to hire O’Brien’s replacement. Expect the Texans to hire another offensive-minded head coach who’ll work with Deshaun Watson, who’s one of the NFL’s best young quarterbacks but is going through an inconsistent stretch. Even though McNair wasn’t happy with losing the first three games, especially with the way the Texans played, he rationalized the losses knowing Kansas City, Baltimore and Pittsburgh are elite teams, including the Chiefs and Steelers on the road. McNair expected to beat the Vikings and Jacksonville to rebound with a 2-3 record. When the Texans lost to Minnesota and looked bad doing it, he didn’t want to risk losing to the Jaguars in their first division game. The players played hard for O’Brien — they always did — but this season they didn’t play smart, and they didn’t play well on either side of the ball. The Minnesota defeat spurred McNair to take action. The Texans are desperate. After the Jaguars, the Texans play at Tennessee and host Green Bay, so there’s a good chance they’ll go into their open date at 1-6 or possibly even 0-7. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/te...-Texans-turn-for-next-head-coach-15623659.php McNair is expected to lean heavily on executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby, a former Patriots character coach and Kansas City Chiefs team chaplain, as the team launches what’s expected to be a wide-ranging coaching search, according to league sources not authorized to speak publicly. Easterby is expected to be a key figure in guiding the organization through this transition. He has operated in a versatile Texans role that has included negotiating contract extensions for Pro Bowl quarterback Deshaun Watson (four years, $156 million), Pro Bowl offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil (three years, $66 million) and inside linebacker Zach Cunningham (four years, $58 million), as well as assisting the coaching staff and scouting, medical and analytics departments. The Texans are winless despite the presence of Watson. They lack first- and second-round draft picks next spring, an absence of draft capital attributable to the trade with the Miami Dolphins for Tunsil, the highest paid offensive tackle in the league. And they are in last place in the AFC South despite a payroll that includes a league-high $245 million in cash spending this season. Nonetheless, the Texans’ coaching and general manager positions are attractive. “That team has talent and can be turned around quickly with the right draft picks and some creative management of the salary cap over the next year,” an NFL general manager told the Chronicle. “I know what they have in Deshaun, and he’s a special, special player. It all starts with the quarterback. If you have the right quarterback and the right offensive system tailored to what he does best, you can win a lot of football games. The Texans have an owner who’s willing to spend a lot of money to try to win. I would expect people to be lined up out of the door wanting this job.” Among the top candidates for the head coaching vacancy: Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who helps Andy Reid craft creative game plans for elite quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who’s close to Easterby and coached Tom Brady for several years. Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman, who built the Pistol formation plays that have led to huge numbers with quarterback Lamar Jackson. Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll, who has turned inconsistent quarterback Josh Allen into an MVP candidate. The Texans will also consider highly regarded defensive minds in coordinators Don “Wink” Martindale of the Ravens, Leslie Frazier of the Bills, and Robert Saleh of the San Francisco 49ers. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who has close ties to the Texans through Watson (whom he coached in college) and the staff, would be an intriguing candidate. He once called Watson the Michael Jordan of football. In terms of the front office, the Texans could try again to land Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio. The Texans attempted to hire Caserio after firing Gaine in 2019 but halted their pursuit after briefly facing tampering charges from Patriots owner Robert Kraft. The Texans already have 38 players under contract for 2021 and are projected to be roughly $6.9 million over the projected salary-cap limit of $175 million. They’ll have several players with expiring contracts, including wide receiver Will Fuller, cornerbacks Gareon Conley, Phillip Gaines and Vernon Hargreaves, wide receiver Kenny Stills, outside linebacker Brennan Scarlett, long snapper Jon Weeks, backup quarterback A.J. McCarron, inside linebacker Dylan Cole, defensive end Carlos Watkins, offensive tackles Brent Qvale and Roderick Johnson, linebacker Tyrell Adams and special-teams ace Michael Thomas. Their highest salary-cap figures for 2021 are Tunsil ($19.4 million), J.J. Watt ($17.5 million), Watson ($15.94 million), Whitney Mercilus ($12 million), Brandin Cooks ($12 million), Cunningham ($11.4 million), Bradley Roby ($11 million), David Johnson ($9 million), Zach Martin $8.75 million) and Benardrick McKinney ($8.5 million). Texans players were not shocked by O’Brien’s firing after being informed during a meeting Monday afternoon, but they were caught off-guard by its timing, according to league sources not authorized to speak publicly. O’Brien had lost the confidence of the organization and was increasingly prone to arguments with staff, including loud ones in front of players on the practice field, according to sources. O’Brien’s legendary temper flared up multiple times in recent years with a series of verbal confrontations throughout the building at Kirby Drive, including when he fired people. “Bill got rid of everyone he knew and trusted, which raises a question: What was the big-picture plan?” an NFL source said. “Expectations should be higher with a game-changing quarterback. They’re in a very tough position to improve with multiple aging players and limited ways to improve with their lack of draft picks next year. This isn’t an easy fix.”
Why are we talking about candidates now? Texans are likely to wait till the end of the season (or at least close to it) and landscape of football is going to be different by then.
The Hopkins trade is almost worth it if it got the f**ker removed. Had the trade not been made he's still comfortably the coach and we're rolling along to another 7-9 win season.
Unfortunately, I agree and it sucks still that Nuk had to be the sacrificial lamb. I honestly think Billy thought it was a masterstroke that he was able to get "so much" in return for Hopkins only to find out minutes later through social media, the internet, ESPN, Reddit, etc that it was one of the dumbest trades in the history of the NFL. That bad look then caused Billy to execute another panic move of acquiring Cooks for another pick.
Gotta start casting the net at the very least. I’d rather the org talk about it than sit on their hands like the did when OB was running things into the ground.
The silver lining is that there are legitimate candidates out there (unlike the Rockets search) after this season. Eric Bieniemy, Robert Saleh, Brian Daboll, etc. I wouldn't be mad with any of them.
One can dream of Watson getting the Andy Reid treatment. He'd be a god overnight. The problem is the defense will be dogs**t for years to come it seems.
#1 - dont let Easterby hire a coach. Hire a GM first. #2 - Let Deshaun call his own plays for the rest of the year. How about a JD Clowney reunion next year? Shed some of this dead weight with McKinney, Mercilus and the other overpaid guys Obrien gifted contracts to and lets go get some real talent again. Now that OBrien is gone maybe JD would want to come back, heard he loved Houston. TENN could always resign him, but I would make a pitch at least. trade JJ this year for a 2nd - maybe Pittsburgh bites.
What went wrong for Bill O’Brien, whose Texans tenure is finally over By Aaron Reiss Oct 5, 2020 By the end, Bill O’Brien didn’t even pretend to have answers. The running back he acquired in return for DeAndre Hopkins kept struggling to find holes, and one of the new receivers he brought in finished a game without a catch. So as losses piled up, O’Brien kept finding himself in the same pose, saying the same line. He’d put an elbow on the table, prop his head against one of his palms, look into the camera for a postgame Zoom press conference and say, “I don’t know.” O’Brien, who was fired Monday as Texans head coach and general manager, developed a reputation during six-plus seasons in Houston as fiery and combative, tough to work with and always in pursuit of more power. But during the final weeks of his tenure, he appeared almost resigned when speaking to reporters, like a man who knew his plan was broken but didn’t know how to fix it. “I don’t know,” he said again, in response to a question about his team’s poor tackling in a Week 4 loss to the Vikings, which ended up being O’Brien’s 100th and final game as Texans head coach. “I’ve got to look at the tape.” O’Brien admitted Monday, in a brief news conference following his firing, that he began to think his ousting was possible after that loss to previously winless Minnesota. His defense had been bad yet again, allowing 130 yards on the ground to Dalvin Cook and 11.8 yards per pass attempt to Kirk Cousins. But through four games, the Texans’ offense was O’Brien’s biggest problem. Houston’s roster is designed to win shootouts, yet the Texans have still failed to score more than 23 points. In an NFL season with more scoring than ever before, only three teams have regressed in terms of points per drive: the Ravens, who are still elite; the Chargers, who have started rookie Justin Herbert at QB in three games; and the Texans, who are only in this position because of moves O’Brien made. In that loss to the Vikings, which included O’Brien taking back play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Tim Kelly, the Texans seemed to miss Hopkins more than ever. They went 0-3 in the red zone, with receiver Will Fuller failing to secure a 4th down touchdown pass that would’ve put them in position to tie. As the ball popped out when Fuller hit the turf, the Texans’ playoff hopes practically died then and there — and whatever interest fans still had in this era of Texans football seemed to as well. What better sign for the level of apathy that had sunk in than fans at the first home game open to the public during a pandemic deciding they’d rather leave at the start of the fourth quarter, after the Vikings went up two scores, than watch anymore? From the owner’s box, team chairman and CEO Cal McNair saw that. And when he looked toward the field, he saw a team that had taken a bigger step back than even O’Brien’s greatest critics might’ve imagined. Regression always seemed likely for Houston, which last season became just the third team in this century to win double digit games despite finishing with a negative point differential. But the Texans dropped from winners of a playoff game to downright noncompetitive in their first two games this season, against the Chiefs and Ravens, and barely competitive in their next two, against the Steelers and Vikings. They have played arguably one good half of football — the first two quarters in Pittsburgh — and they own the third-worst point differential in the NFL (minus-46), ahead of only the Jets and Giants. That’s not company they should be keeping when they have an elite QB. O’Brien’s hope that David Johnson could revive his career in Houston has looked totally misguided. Not only has the supposedly versatile running back averaged a career-low 25 receiving yards per game, but he’s rushed for just 2.79 YPC on first downs. The Texans have been behind the sticks so often and possessed so few schematic answers that Deshaun Watson has been sacked more frequently this season than he was in 2018, when he had to take a bus to Jacksonville. This despite the fact the Texans have spent three first-round picks, two second-round picks and more to acquire right tackle Tytus Howard, left guard Max Scharping and left tackle Laremy Tunsil, the last of whom signed a record-breaking extension with Houston after O’Brien got him in a precedent-breaking trade. That’s the best way to sum up O’Brien’s tenure with the Texans, at least as GM: He threw resources at problems and still didn’t fix them — while also paying a premium. Not only did O’Brien trade Hopkins in exchange for Johnson, but he took back all of the running back’s bloated salary. Not only did O’Brien rationalize the move by saying the team simply couldn’t afford to keep Hopkins, but he gave 30-year-old slot receiver Randall Cobb $18 million guaranteed on a three-year deal in an otherwise dry free agent market. And not only did O’Brien decide not to hold onto D.J. Reader, a 26-year-old defensive lineman who is sorely missed on a team that ranks 24th in run defense DVOA, but he opted to pay edge rusher Whitney Mercilus $54 million on a four-year deal that is four games old and already looks bad. “Did we make mistakes? Obviously, we made mistakes,” O’Brien said Monday evening. “I mean, I don’t think anybody’s perfect, but we worked very hard to field a competitive team. We had a competitive team for years here. I think this is a competitive team. But obviously you got to win games to be really considered that way.” O’Brien declined to say whether he’d angled to become GM or simply did what was asked of him after the Texans fired Brian Gaine in June 2019, following a playoff appearance in Gaine’s only season on the job. He said he had no regrets about any move the Texans had made, adding “there are things that happen within the walls of an organization that the outside will never know.” But when talking about his future, O’Brien only mentioned a desire to coach. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I want to coach again,” said the 50-year-old, whose contract with the Texans ran through 2022. Whenever O’Brien resurfaces, the Texans will likely still be paying for his decisions. As bad as the team looks now, building a functioning roster around Watson will only become harder in future seasons, when the QB’s cap rises significantly, along with Tunsil’s, while the Texans have fewer rookie contracts to provide them value on the margins. The issues with the Texans’ plan under O’Brien were apparent as they made their moves. So what became clear to McNair — who only released a statement and spoke to the Houston Chronicle — that wasn’t obvious before the season began? If the decision was based more around O’Brien’s failings as a coach during the 0-4 start, he arguably — when judged solely on coaching — should have been given a longer leash. The Texans faced a brutal opening stretch, and O’Brien made the playoffs four times in the past six seasons. Though the Texans’ schedule now gets easier, it seems unlikely they’ll be in much better hands under interim head coach Romeo Crennel, who lost his defensive coordinator job during the offseason and is 28-55 when in charge. And in the front office, there’s no clear reason to believe the Texans’ approach will change much in the short-term, considering executive VP of football operations Jack Easterby, who worked alongside O’Brien during the roster overhaul, remains in place. But at 0-4, the Texans felt they needed to make a change and fired O’Brien, who had amassed so much power that there was no one else to blame.
Overpaying hugely for Mercilus, Mckinney and Cunningham is really going to come back to haunt them. They are paying premium at the wrong positions there for average to good players. The corner position is not great, no real young up and comers, and outside of JJ no great pass rushers.
If Tim Kelley was smart, he would run his own offense effective immediately and venture away from what BoB was doing. you can make your own career this year!
BOB was a crap coach. He held the team back. He's gone. This is a good thing. But man, this Jack Easterby fellow gives me a serious case of the Joel Olsteen willies. Ideally Easterby should be gone too, and we should have a new front office and a completely fresh slate... but it appears that Easterby is here to stay. This is troubling given that Easterby oversaw BOB's meltdown and that series of wildly stupid trades that will cripple this franchise for years. Easterby deserves a chance to prove to us that he can hire the right staff and at least not rubberstamp such god awful roster/asset management... but the leash should be short. Watch the next coaching staff carefully. They're playing from behind now, so losses may belie their actual skill level. If you can see them making the right decisions, managing the game well, turning nickels into dimes, etc, but the wins aren't there, keep in mind that this team is going to have a talent and money deficit for a few years. We may have to be extra patient and careful in how we judge things going forward to compensate for the the absolute disaster that the Texans' front office has been since 2018.
Kubes is loyal to a fault. If he had to do it again, he’d still take Schaub over Manning. So glad such a decent person got a ring while the backstabbers are out of football. You’re up next preacher boy.
That's the dream. The shackles are now off. They're all playing with house money. It's audition time for everyone. Either you win now or you go hungry.
