Where do things stand with Deshaun Watson? I’m not gonna ask to comment on the legal stuff because that’s gonna work itself out. Do you still view Deshaun Watson as the starting QB of the Houston Texans and plan for him to be the starting QB for the Houston Texans week 1? Like you said, the legal process is a separate entity. That’s a pretty active situation. We’ll leave that to the authorities. As it pertains to the team, we’re kinda day to day with everything, with everybody. From the beginning since I’ve taken the job to now, we’ve had a lot of change and there’s been a lot of activity. I suspect as we work towards the start of training camp and into the regular season, that we’ll continually have changes to the roster. What those look like, what that entails, we’re not sure. We’re just day to day, going through it one day at a time and trying to get ready for the next phase, which we think is the offseason program. That’s what I would say as it pertains to that situation. You’ve said Deshaun is your QB and plan for Deshaun to be your QB. Do you still feel that way? We’ll take it one day at a time. Everything is pretty fluid is here. We’ll adjust as we go. We’ll do what we feel is best for the Houston Texans organizationally. So you’d be open to a trade? Ultimately we’ll do what we feel is best for the organization. Have you talked to him? I don’t want to give any comment about what conversations have taken place with players. I’ve talked to a lot of different players. Those conversations are private and to remain between the respective parties and that’s out of respect to everybody involved. You’ve had about 3 months in the building to set things up, hire a coach. The other thing that is a big topic of conversation down there is Jack Easterby. You and Jack go way back. You know him really well. Can you give me an idea of how his role flows into your role and kinda how Jack’s role has evolved now maybe that you’re in the building as the guy in charge of football operations? I’ve known Jack a long time, probably longer than anybody in the building here in Houston. Jack is very gifted. He has a lot of great qualities. I can’t really speak to what happened in the past relative to his role. There’s a lot of people in a building. Everyone has an important job, an important responsibility. The way we’re set up organizationally, the way the McNair’s have granted me the responsibility to oversee all football decisions as it pertains to the roster and that’s working in conjunction with Coach Culley and his staff. The last two to three months have been indicative of that. We’ve had multiple meetings and conversations about our team, about perspective players we’re going to bring in and those conversations have been very beneficial and fruitful. If you speak to anybody, a lot of players — some pretty good players through the years, Matthew Slater, Tom Brady, James White, David Andrews, the list goes on and on — Jack’s impact on our team and in the building was pretty significant. You’d find to a man how they feel about him. Jack’s an important part of what we’re doing. We should all be grateful he’s here. He has plenty of responsibility that he’s been given but as it pertains to football decision making, football roster building and those types of things, that’s the reason that I was brought in and that’s my responsibility and Jack has his role, just like a lot of other people do within the football department. Obviously there’s like overlap though. There’s some things probably in his department that touch football. I’ve heard from New England what kind of resource he was to the guys there, whether it was players, coaches, Bill. Can you give me a good example of what sort of resource he was in New England? More than anything, it’s not about specific roles or responsibilities. Jack is a quality person, a quality human being. He has gifts, leadership qualities he’s been given. Jack’s mentality and mindset has always been to serve and do right by people. I don’t think that’s changed from the time he was with us in New England and other places he’s been. The mindset and mentality will be the same here in Houston. A football building and football operation is various. There’s a thousand things that go into it. The head coach has certain things he handles and he needs assistants, whether it’s in operations or logistics or overall operation of the building. One person can’t do it. I can’t do it. Culley can’t do it. Jack can’t do it. Jack has a role. It’s an important role in the organization. Everyone has a role and job they have to take care of. It’s not one particular thing or something tangible. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Jack, who he is as a human being and type of person he is. That carries a lot of weight. [...] You had to have a moment where you enjoyed it or it hit you, “Wow, I’m a NFL GM.” Those that know me very well know I’m low key. I don’t get too too excited or overwhelmed. It’s not about a title. A title is great. I’m blessed. What I care about is how I am as a man, as a husband, as a father. Not necessarily who I am and what I do as a GM. That’s part of the job, that’s my title, that’s my responsibility but there’s more to it than that. I don’t take it for granted but try not to take myself too, too seriously. You just try to focus on the job in front of us and maintain perspective. I try to stay as even keel as possible. We’re blessed and fortunate to be where we are. We’re gonna try to do best job we possibly can for the McNair family and Texans organization. [...] How different is your job now from what you did then [in New England (2009-2020)], on top of the personnel department? Great question. We’re in the infantile stages here relative to what we’re doing in Houston but a lot of the elements are relatively similar. Essentially you’re involved in each aspect of the team building process. Call it from March-April, free agency. Then you shift gears to draft preparation. Those things are consistent. That’s where we are for the time being. As we transition to the fall, we’ll have to see what that looks like because that had a very distinct skill set and very distinct set of responsibilities in New England. Again, the most important thing is doing what we feel is best for our organization. It’s having that servant mindset, servant-like attitude to assist in whatever role is helpful to assist our team. You were on the headset in New England. Do you plan on continuing that in Houston? Do you plan on having any on field involvement or being on the headset on Sunday? No one probably wants me wearing a headset but we’ll figure out what we feel is best from a staffing perspective. My job is to support and serve our coaching staff. That’s the most important thing I can do in my role. Whatever that entails...no job is too small. If they need me to go work in the equipment room, I’ll go work in the equipment room. If they need me to carry the cords? on the sideline because we think that helps the head coach, then I’ll carry the cords? on the sideline. It’s not gonna be my decision. It’s not gonna be unilaterally, like here’s what I think or here’s what I want to do. It’s about the team. It’s not about one individual. That’s how we’re gonna handle it. My job is to serve Coach Culley and his staff, do the best job possibly I can for him and them. What separated David Culley? I would say his energy, his enthusiasm, his approach and the fact he has been in multiple programs, which to a certain extent aren’t too dissimilar to what we’re trying to do. When he went from Philadelphia to Kansas City with Coach Reid, coach was pretty purposeful in having David be associated with that. When he had the opportunity to go to Buffalo with Coach McDermott and what he was trying to do, that speaks to who David is as a coach and individual. And when John finally had the opportunity to bring him to Baltimore. They worked on the staff way back in Philadelphia. It’s never one thing. It’s not about the role or what the individual has done. You have a sense as you’re going through the process,...in the end we felt that was the best thing for our organization. David has been everything we thought he’d be from the time he’s walked in the door. His energy, his enthusiasm, his mindset, his positivity, his emphasis on the team, what he expects from the coaches, what he expects from the players, that doesn’t change day to day. Anyone who has come in contact with him has seen that first hand and our goal is to continue to grow that as we move along here and put this team together.
Everyone was connecting you to coaches. How have you and David taken time to make sure you’re on the same page? I know what you’re looking for. You know what I’m looking for. How have you guys tried to carve that time out to learn each other well enough so the whole organization can go? Very organically. It’s like the platform we have here. You sit in a room, talk face to face, have open and honest communication, share ideas back and forth, get a sense of things important to him, articulate things important on our end and that trickles down to the coaching staff. We’ve tried to be purposeful with what we’ve done with the team the last however many weeks. It doesn’t happen overnight. I’ve known David. We’ve had a relationship, more cordial, not necessarily having worked together but he’s been the same person in our building as the times we’ve interacted, whether during the season or at the scouting combine. The only way to make progress on anything is do it collectively and together. It’s not about what I think or here’s what we should do. Here’s a suggestion, give us some thought, you’ll have some input, take his input, take input from the coaching staff and try to reach an endpoint and make a decision. Whatever decision we make, it’s not my decision, it’s our decision, it’s the team’s decision and move forward with that decision. If we have to make an adjustment or shift our gear a little bit, then we go ahead and do that. The only way you make progress in anything is have honest, open and direct communication. Just listen. That’s how we’ve tried to handle it. He’s been very receptive. We’ve hopefully been receptive to one another. I would anticipate that’s the formula it’s gonna take moving forward. There’s always gonna be moving parts. The one thing constant about the NFL is change. The ability to adapt, be flexible, be open minded. When you have someone who shares those same beliefs and understands that mindset, it makes it a little easier and hopefully you can make progress together. “Are they just trying to be Patriots South?” How do you balance taking everything you’ve learned from the one place you’ve worked in the NFL, all the success you had, all the validation you guys did and balance that with I just can’t airlift Gillette Stadium and paint it different colors in Houston? That’s the $25,000 question, right? We’re all a product of our experiences, whether it’s how we were raised as a child, what professional environment we worked in. There’s so many thing I learned being in Foxoboro and learned from a lot of different people. It’s one of the most successful franchises in the history of sports for a long period of time and sustainability for a long period of time made it successful. You try to figure out some core beliefs or some things you feel are transferable but each situation you walk into is a little bit different. Silicon Valley, like you can’t reduplicate what Google does with some other tech company or tech startup. You may have people who worked at Google that take over a new corporation and take some attributes and elements of Google that were successful and try to apply them to their environment. We’re gonna be the Houston Texans. We’re gonna do what we feel is the best for our organization. We’re all a product of our experiences. You try to take some core attributes and things you feel are transferable, understanding that everyone has to be themselves, you can’t airlift...I can’t airlift my house from Massachusetts and bring it here to Houston. It’s just being who we are, do what we believe, do what we think is right and do it collectively, understanding there’s gonna be bumps in the road and that’s natural. That’s life. Have you studied any of that? Like any non-football companies, how maybe an executive from one company left for another company? Yes, I’ve done a lot of research. Away from football, I try to spend my time focused on things that have nothing to do with football. Football can be all consuming. There’s so much information and so many different mediums and platforms. When you look at different organizations, it’s not necessarily about organizations. It’s about leadership and people. One person I’ve “studied” quite a bit, not studied but read his book is Satya Nadella. Nadella took over for Steve Ballmer. His personality is different than Ballmer’s. He had a way that worked for him. He’s tried to do some things he feels are in the best interest of their organization and what he believes in. When you see a guy like Nadella, it’s about empathy. He has a special needs child. He’s learned some things and how he’s built his culture and what he’s put in place are things he wholeheartedly believes in. What you try to do is look around you. There is no one size fits all or one perfect way. I’m intrigued by leadership models and organizational behavior and spend as much time learning and educating myself on that. The only way we’ll grow as people is learning things maybe we’re not aware of and you might come across something and “Hey, I never thought about that.” Studying leadership, studying organizational behavior, I just finished Adam Grant’s “Think Again”. The ability to rethink, adjust, reshape as you go, that’s reflective of society in which we live. The more you’re cognizant of that and that’s reality, that’s how we’re gonna sustain and survive going forward and understanding where we are now, in 2-3 years it may be different. What can you do to stay ahead of that? The best way to sum that all up is stay as progressive as possible and maybe what we’re doing is a progressive model of what I learned in New England. You can’t reduplicate. You have to assess where you are, process it, put good systems in place and keep moving forward. There’s some guys in the building you have background with. With new people in the building, is there something that ties them together that’s reflective of the culture you want to build there and what you’ve learned and what you want to be? We’ve added about 30 players. The intent has been competition and opportunity. A lot of these players fall into a band of about 3-8 years. There’s a few on either side. Here’s an opportunity. The competition is in front of you. Build as much depth on the roster as possible understanding that of the 30 or so players we’ve signed, another 10-12 new players come in at the end of April between the draft and undrafted players. There’s gonna be constant change and transition. Competition, team first attitude, embrace competition, embrace what’s in front of them. The type of people you are matters. Bring in good people in the building. It’s about people. We can talk about Xs and Os but people matter. Good people, good process, good system. That takes time. It won’t change overnight. Having enough of those people that share that mindset and mentality and again let the competition sort itself out, it’s not what I think, it’s about the individual and player. That’s the most important thing or one thing consistent with those players. Try to get good people, some from pretty good programs, that embrace competition and opportunity in front of them and are excited about coming to Houston, which quite frankly a lot of players we’ve talked to are excited to be here and want to be here so that really speaks to what they want, not necessarily anything we’re doing but says a lot about who they are. Coolest moment as GM? Other than getting annihilated for not liking BBQ at my opening press conference? I’m still getting razzed about it. I would say as we added the players to the team, the way everyone in the building worked together in unison. The volume was massive. New staff with new people, how smoothly that process went. It’s not any indication about what’s gonna happen or things to come but it says hopefully we’re moving in the right direction. What happens on the field matters most but to see everyone’s effort come to fruition and adding that volume of players was cool to see.
That’s a great interview from Breer and some good answers from nick. Deshaun seems gone at this point
Prepare to be very underwhelmed. I can tell you now, the return will not be what people are expecting. I think itll be close to what the Dolphins got for pick 3, maybe less, with some contingencies on games played for future capital.
I don't think there's any way anyone is trading for Watson as long as these legal issues persist. There's too much potential for problems - no franchise can justify trading for him if there's the potential the NFL suspends him or he has the potential for criminal charges.
completely agree. from my view, both sides are stuck...and the legal system never works very quickly, and definitely not in the middle of or on the heels of a pandemic.
Kinda funny how it started as “Deshaun is our quarterback” to “we will do what’s in the best interest of the organization” ...if the legal issues wasn’t a factor it would be a certainty but we shall see soon
This seems to be developing as an opportunity for the Panthers' to get their man. If the owner is still wanting Watson, he can buy low and potentially have the star QB he craves.
They're certainly creating cap room (likely to rollover to next year), but what's the benefit if the cap hit for the restructured contracts is also deferred? Just a mechanism to sign more roster filler lottery tickets this year?
