Uhh, this was NOT the first sign. Nothing even close. Cal is the one that officially promoted him to GM after seeing the nonsense he did with Clowney and Tunsil trades, so he could throw away even more talent in Hopkins. Cal fired him only after the players revolted. He missed like 17 previous signs of how terrible BoB was and how much damage he was doing.
I agree. What this also shows me is that he is still the true leader of this team. Watson will have it soon but JJ really hasn't given it up yet.
MV: One thing about your statement, you said we have a good team. That had to factor into your decision of why you did things now. CM: I've heard "Why now?" It is a good question. We were 0-4. The last several quarters I felt deserved some attention. In the Pittsburgh game 2nd half we struggled and against the Vikings, we weren't playing the caliber we should be playing. At 0-4, I felt we needed to change directions. Typically people do it at the end of the year. We certainly could have waited. There was another off-ramp around the break, on our bye week. I had also thought about if we hadn't played better against the Vikings & Jacksonville, I would need to have to make the hard decision. It was after the Vikings game that I felt it was the right thing to do. With 12 games left, the season isn't over. If you divide the season up into quarters, we've played just the first quarter. It's time to go out there and focus on one game at a time. We made the change. I really believe in our players. We have really good players. We've seen it in spurts. We gotta put those together & go find a way to win a game. I really believe we can do that. MV: Confidence in Romeo Crennel taking over. CM: We've known Romeo for 6 1/2 years. He's a terrific person, terrific coach. Guys have a lot of respect for him. He's a natural fit there. We had gone through the exercise with thinking through the virus and what happens in different positions on our staff if someone caught the virus and was out a couple of weeks. In fact, Bill felt strongly Romeo was the right guy. In talking through all of our options, we absolutely agreed with that. This wasn't the same reason for making the change but we thought through it. We're ready for this & made the change. MV: Bill was also GM. How will you handle the GM side? CM: So the league does like to see certain names in certain boxes. Romeo will fill the head coach box on the interim basis. Jack Easterby will step into interim GM role. We'll go forward in that way. We turn in our list of contacts to the league so people know who to call. They already know who to call because it's a close knit bunch. We will start a search for the HC & GM on a permanent basis. At that time, Jack will switch back to the job he had before, which was in football ops. I've started a conversation with the search firm but right now, we want to focus & get everyone settled down and go play a great game Sunday and rally around coach. I know it's a cliche when you say "one game at a time" but for us it really is. We need to focus on this one game ahead of us and put together great effort. I want to see our guys having fun. I want to see the defense flying around. I want to put the rock boy band back together. I want them to play their songs. I want Justin Reid to take a pick back 99 yards. I want to see Deshaun playing air guitar. He has a great end zone dance my wife really likes to see. These are things I want to get back to. I want to get back to having fun. I want the guys flying around. I want playing fundamental. That'll lead to wins & where we'll go. MV: Despite the 0-4 start, sounds like you are confident in the roster. CM: We have seen the players put together, like I said earlier, good drives on offense. They can roar up and down the field. We can run the ball. We can pass the ball. On defense, we've seen them step up and make stops. We have the players. When you look back in time, and I don't want to spend too much time on it because it is in the rear view mirror, we would have loved to have Hopkins on our team but when you have a franchise LT, which we re-did his contract and by the way, he's playing at a top 5 level right now. We have the franchise LT. We have a franchise QB, which we've been looking for for years, we have him and have very firm belief Deshaun is our guy. We had those two major contracts. When you look across the league, we're paying more than anyone & it isn't really close. When Hopkins wanted to re-do his contract, it wasn't something we could do. We did trade him. We traded him to a team that had the salary cap to extend him, to a team with a great owner, to a team with a exciting and fun offense. We did a good job placing him in a good place. He's a talented, talented guy. We would love to have him but it wouldn't fit financially with the constraints we have operating the club under the salary cap. It wasn't possible to do at this time. MV: As the search goes on, would it be hiring one before the other? (GM/Coach) CM: That's how we've been structured traditionally, with a HC and a GM. I'll look for us to go back to that. We'll spend a lot of time working on getting the exact fit. Typically the GM first and then use his expertise and your search group to find the right head coach. I'm confident we can do that. We're coming up with lists, we already have lists. We'll refine them. We have plenty of time to do that. There's restraints in the league while the season is going on & totally respect those. We'll cast a broad net & find the right guys who will work hard together, be smart, be dedicated & bring championships to Houston. I can't tell you how excited I am for the players. I believe in the players. The players will come out & do great things. The season isn't over. We have 12 games. I'm excited to see how this season plays out. MV: Founder's Day was yesterday. (Founding of the franchise on October 6, 1999) You were able to visit with school children. CM: Founder's Day, Jamie Roots & his group do a great job. They came up with this Founder's Day concept. Last year we utilized it to put dad in the proper Ring of Honor. Wonderful day. This year & year's going forward, we'll all volunteer & try to make the world a better place. Yesterday was that day. Numbers were at least 90 of our people called at least 100 classrooms and we all read to them and tried to make a small difference in someone's live. Over 2,000 kids we read to. Something we were excited to do. A great Founder's Day.
Nah, he's happy he's in Arizona with a coaching staff that knows what it's doing, and he got paid. He's salty about how he was nothing but professional as a Texan and the organization ended up treating him like trash, specifically BoB but it looks like Cal as well.