To be clear, I am not defending the Texans. They are an organization that is somewhere between mediocre and terrible. They are an overall poorly ran franchise and organization. When I said "what does it matter", I mean that they are not going to win a lot of games and they appear to be willing to roll also-rans out there until they get the coach they want. They have made a mockery of the last two coaching hires. I don't know how much of that is Caserio and how much of that is McNair, but it is the reality of the situation.
He wasn't interviewing. Anywhere. Because no one was considering him as a HC. Until the Texans failed in their search and needed a Plan Z.
They've already spun it as "he was always in the hunt/involved... but it really escalated recently". But no, he was not a top candidate when this team fired Cully and was deciding to go in a different direction. Something shifted... more likely as of recently vs. back then. This front office can't seem to land the guy they want or execute a laid out plan, and that's a problem if we want to dissect some of the basic functions that a front office should have. It also causes a little more concern on how they're truly going to handle even bigger upcoming decision such as the draft or the Watson dilemma. This wasn't like last year where Casserio came in late on the HC process and the narrative was he decided to defer/settle. They pretty much did the exact same thing this time around... and had plenty of advanced opportunity to go after the full plethora of options... and now they're deferring/settling.
@Nook did the Flores news make the Texans panic so they just decided to offer the job to the first black guy they could find in their text history?
Thanks, @Major -- and apologies all if I haven't followed the thread post-per-post, but can we confirm that people turned them down or is that just a super logical assumption at this point?
Jauron: 6, 5, 13, 4 and 7 with Bears. Nagy: 12, 8, 8 and 4 Lovie: 5, 11, 13, 7, 9, 7, 11 8, 10 One of these is not like the others
I truly loved the ol' Gamblers with Kelly and the run and shoot offense. https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Run_and_shoot_offense
Either everyone turned them down or after having a full year to evaluate HC candidates (knowing Culley was a stopgap), they couldn't identify a single one they liked. Take your pick, I guess.
I truly cannot believe a multi billion dollar operation is run the way the Texans have been the last 5 years. They were never an impressive organization, but the wheels have fallen off so completely with Tommy Boy in charge it's astonishing.
The only report that they were turned down was by #Sarge and he claimed McCown turned them down. That has been refuted by Aaron Wilson. The only possible "turn down" is see is the 790 theory that they wanted a shot at McDaniels and he wasn't interested. The most likely scenario is that they wanted to hire McCown and couldn't bring themselves to actually pull the trigger in the current environment. Gannon wanted the job. Most of the other people they pursued weren't serious candidates.
The most Texans-like end to this story is that they hire Lovie Smith as HC, he does a reasonable job and maybe gets them back to some sort of respectability (but never a real contender). They bring Josh McCown in as QB coach (or even straight to OC) and he is a big part of why they get back to respectability. Bringing the offense back and molding Davis Mills into a pretty good QB... ...and then McCown gets hired on to another team. Probably one that has a functional, competent front office and goes on as HC to bring glory to this other team, whoever they may be. And somewhere -- in the background -- Cal McNair plays with a fidget spinner or pogs or some such **** and is just as happy as he could be.
Flores? O'Connell? These weren't serious candidates? On who's end - the Texans or on their side because they didn't want the job? Offers generally aren't actually made unless both parties know they will accept - candidates rarely "formally" turn down a job offer. It's the same in politics/etc - you get far enough in negotiations that you only make an offer once you've agreed on terms so its easy to say someone didn't turn you down. There was reporting last week that Flores took himself out of contention because they wouldn't let him pick his staff. I suspect other candidates may have done the same. Leftwich never officially turned down the Jags - he just pulled himself out of the running, but it's effectively the same thing. But if McCown and Gannon were the only serious candidates, that brings up more questions: 1. If you can't get McCown, why not hire Gannon? 2. How did you only come up with 2 possible head coach options (or 3, if you include McDaniels) when you had a full year to be researching possibilities? 3. If you couldn't get either, why not keep interviewing instead of just punting for another 2 years (they can't fire Lovie after one year given the Culley fiasco)? There's no way anyone in the front office thinks "Lovie is our long-term future coach" so what exactly is the purpose of this?
I meant the early guys like Hines Ward. O'Connell I forgot though. Flores didn't turn them down. To the rest of your stuff, I do think they wanted to hire McCown. Flores was also a possibility. Flores blew both of them up though. Now they are scrambling and they are out of time to do a new search. So they have to settle on Lovie. I think they end up with a better coach than Culley and a better situation than hiring McCown, so they've kind of stumbled into a better situation but it's not great.
If they wanted McDaniels, I would think they would have been linked more to him in the media? I guess anything is possible but I am not sure why they would think he would want to go to the Texans. I thought that Gannon gave the Texans an ultimatum and the Texans declined? It sure sounds like they wanted McCown and someone wasn't comfortable with it. The was a report that Cal wasn't comfortable with hiring him last time. Maybe that is the case now as well..... hard to say for sure. I would say it was Caserio but he didn't seem to mind hiring Cully and he also said he wanted a leader and not someone necessarily experienced. So my guess is it was Cal. Hiring Lovie Smith checks some boxes for the Texans and years ago he was good in the playoffs. People in Chicago think the hire is hilarious but they are also jaded by never getting over the hump for so long.
interesting perspective why we're hiring Lovie... Jack Easterby continues to stay a step ahead of everyone (yahoo.com)
