Texans GM Rick Smith taking extended family medical leave

If the team still had Kubiak and Wade, they'd have gotten more out of the team than BOB did. When you have a coach who is legitimately good at running offenses you can make things happen with less. Hell just replace BOB with any competent Offensive Coordinator and it would have made the team better. I'm not saying that we'd have been looking at a playoff team, because the injuries were clearly a factor but you wouldn't have losses you could pin on coaching and that would be nice for a change.

 

That's just BOB trying to blame others for his failure, something he's good at. I would agree that having Watson is going to help mask the terrible coaching...but it won't make it go away. In fact, that's how you get stuck with awful coaching long term, by having a player who can mask terrible coaching.

 

I'll give ol' Kubiak one thing. He made chicken salad. There's no way that offense should've been so good and IT WAS. Remember Charles Spencer too, they weren't intent on Duane Brown until he went out with a career injury. Even with Brown, ONE blue chip OLmen and a bunch of guys. Even beyond that, who was SPECIAL on that offense? Andre. And? Foster, if you want to completely ignore the system I guess. Kubiak built a hell of a machine out of nothing.

 

I hate articles like this because the obvious retort is... so they shouldn't try?!?

 

So you honestly blame the loss to the patriots on BOB and not Corey Moore?

Edit: And what happened with Kubiak and Wade in 2013 going 2-14?

 

Terrible news. Hoping for the best.

 

Absolutely I do. When your defense is one of the worst in the league and your offense is currently the best (or second best) in the league and you put the game in the hands of your defense going against Tom F'n Brady instead of trusting your offense it's your fault when the obvious happens.

The Texans were leading with the ball on the NE 18 yard line with something like 2:20 left on the clock. If you go for it and pick it up, you can either damn near run out the clock before kicking the FG or score a TD and ice the game. Instead they took the quick FG and trusted the worst defense in the NFL. Sorry, but that's just foolish.

As to what happened to Kubiak and Wade, they lost the locker room, partly due to Kubiak's loyalty to Schaub. I wasn't saying that they didn't need to be fired when they were, I was just saying that they are far better coaches than what the Texans currently have as evidenced by them winning a SB shortly after leaving and Wade Philips turning every defense he's taken over into one of the best in the NFL. That said, keeping the locker room on your side is vitally important and it's about the only thing BOB can say for himself right now.

 

Been immensely enjoyable watching Solomon and the 790 girls melt down when Rick stepped aside.

Nothing has changed, organizational structure has always been this.

Only difference is Rick Smith returning as Executive Vice President of Football Operations.

So if you're Brian Gaine... why would you take a job in an organization that's saving a spot equal in power to yours for a guy to return who just fired you a year ago???

What good GM candidates want a guy coming back into the building who didn't hire you?

And why did we wait so long to get into the GM game and watch the best candidates -- Dorsey/Gettleman -- go to other teams and not even have a chance to interview Alonzo Highsmith? We knew in October this was coming. Just dumb.

 

Every team makes mistakes, big and small, and it's often only through the magic of hindsight that those mistakes become clear.

Having said that.......... letting Bouye walk is one of the more indefensible decisions a sports franchise has ever made. I understand the hesitancy around giving a undrafted one-year wonder a long-term deal - but they could have reasonably franchised him and given him and themselves one more year of evaluation.

Just.... dumb.

 

I wonder if that would have still been the case if you removed 4 of the best players from the Jags front 7. It's one thing being a DB in coverage when your front 7 is 2nd in the league in sacking the QB (sacking the QB nearly 10% of passing attempts against them) than it is when your front 7 struggles to get any pressure on opposing QB's. He'd probably still be pretty good but I wonder how much his PFF grade would suffer. If anything it makes his numbers less impressive than DB's on teams that failed to get pressure on the QB but still managed to put up good numbers in the secondary.

 

We say that now, but what would the narrative have been if they threw a giant bag of cash at him and he proved to be nothing but a one year wonder? How many people complain about not using that cap space elsewhere?

 

That's the point - they didn't have to throw a giant bag of cash at him; they could've franchised him and given everyone involved another year to prove '16 wasn't a fluke.

They just flat-blew that one.... then, now.......... it was a poor decision.

 

If they signed Bouye, and he wasn't happy and demanded a trade. Would you consider it success if they got a 3rd pick for him?

 

How dumb would they have looked if they franchised him and he reverted back to his old days? Now you got all that money locked in and not enough room to sign a FA QB (Romo was still in play then) and retain Hopkins. Let's also not forget that Kevin Johnson was ranked higher than Bouye by OFF before he got injured last year

 

If they had franchised him, they would have netted two 1s in any trade.

 

Only on clutchfans... people argue against what actually happened with pure speculative "what ifs"?

"what if he ended up having a bad year?" .... he didn't have a bad year, he had a very good year, while being paid. That's the point.

They also let Glover Quinn go several years ago, without putting up much of an effort. Demps would have been better than whatever they put in the secondary this year.

Meanwhile, Cushing plays the entirety of his extension, despite PED use.

 

Not dumb at all. It would've been a smart utilization of the franchise tag - buy yourself time before committing long-term money. Imagine if they could have franchised Osweiler and been free and clear after a single (granted: expensive) season?

 

The only downside to franchising Bouye was the possibility that he'd have an even better '17 and be even more expensive; that then potentially complicates the Hopkins extension (but would have given greater currency to the Osweiler trade, which, in hindsight, was an unnecessary move).

I mean..... it was just horrifically dumb to let him walk when, at the very least, you had an easy, relatively cheap way to keep him AND not lock yourself into a bad long-term contract.