Never? No but it might be harder than you think. If it was as simple as hiring the right OC in the offseason to get an above average offense, all teams would have an above average offense.
Are we leaving Kubiak in charge of motivating the team in this theoretically Kubiak-as-fake-head-coach scenario? If so, instead of just looking at the end of the season, why not look at all of it? If they are winning late in the season because they play hard, what does it say for him that they are losing for the rest of the season?
i can't believe we're having this discussion... in the 5th year of a career where the Texans have never made the playoffs...and only had a winning season once...we're in the midst of losing 6 of our last 7 games, and assured of, once again, not having a winning season. and we're seriously discussing keeping the head coach who has been here for all of that? I keep waiting for Rod Serling to step in and break all this down for me.
'We're playing hard and that's all you can ask for!' LOSER talk right there. Well it's ok if they're not winning, but at least they're not getting blown out and at least they're still playing hard. What a joke. Not sure there is anything to see here but NickScurfield (btw, 8-22 record doesnt include this year yet)
My reading skills don't need work. I only mentioned Cowher there for purposes of shorter post, but his basic argument is if you can get a HOF level coach, great go for it. If not, he wants to keep Kubiak and keep trying new things around him because he is so afraid of what will happen if we hire someone else. My point is that the only, THE ONLY, thing that anyone likes about Kubiak is the offensive scheme. That's it. He brings ZERO to the table besides offensive scheming. So basically Ric is afraid of losing him because of the threat to the offense. If you are going to strip him of so much power and fire everyone he likes, why not just axe him and go get that big name d coordinator you like so much that might ALSO be good at time management, challenges, etc. and pair him up with an offensive coordinator like Josh McDaniels. Boom. Replacing the defensive staff doesn't solve all of the issues on this team because Kubiak as the head coach is still a problem.
This is where there is just a different, subjective, opinion - likelihood of being better. Ric advocates that if you left this offense alone and brought in a independent GM and top flight defensive staff, the likelihood of this team being good is fantastic. Kubiak does plenty to botch things: going away from a top shelf running game, asking Rackers to kick at midfield, stubbornly refuse to bench/fire incompetents (Jackson, Gibbs), terrible playcalling at critical moments (Brown half back pass, half the 4th calls, etc), etc. But despite that, the offense still generates 382 yog (4 yards shy of the #3 spot in the league) and 24 ppg (#9). If we liquidate the D staff, replace them with a Marvin Lewis type led group, and had one offseason worth of roster revamping.....say we get them from being Hall of Fail to mediocre: allow 22 ppg (league avg scoring output...that would make them the #19 defense this year in allowed scoring). Wouldn't that give us a high likelihood of being good? If you went back and said our opponents scored 22 in every game, last year goes from 9-7 to 10-6 (2 new W, 1 L) and this year leaps up to 9-4. 10-6 last year would have gotten us the WC. 9-4 this year would have us gunning for the AFC crown like we should be. I'm not saying this to promote a keep Kubiak angle....but it's not unfair for Ric to argue that replacing everyone other than Kubiak and his O staff would give us a high likelihood of being better. If we end up 7-9 this year with an abysmal D, why would drastically improving that defense still leave us 8-8 the next year under Kubiak? One more time - just saying that Ric's argument isn't indefensible. I still would drop Kubiak like a hat. Just that priority one should be a top flight D coordinator and a GM that won't be swayed by Kubiak's idiocy on draft day.
You appear to be having trouble with cause and effect. Schaub is a third round QB. The numbers he puts up and the awards he receives are the result of Kubiak's system. What round was Foster drafted in? How many all-pro OL are blocking for him? There is no question that Andre Johnson would make any OC job easier.
I think this notion is great...so long as the person named HC, the person that is really running the show at Reliant, is someone that is experienced enough to handle it. Kubiak wasn't McDaniels wasn't Mangini wasn't The GM or new HC can't be learning on the job. If we know that's exactly why Kubiak has failed...why repeat the mistake?
Maybe. Playing hard is half of the equation. Playing well is the other half. You made the point that GK outside of the offense was good for NOTHING. I made the counterpoint.
Yeah they play so hard for him that they basically forfeit 30 minutes of every game. Edit: And we already have statements from Pollard and from Amobi earlier in the year that some players aren't playing hard and might want Koobs out.
I agree with your logic. My only issue here is I see nothing that merits keeping Kubiak as a head coach. The offense is good but I know of at least one o-coordinator that will be available after this season who has a track record of good offense. If you can't get Cowher or Dungy, you can still get a good GM/Team President and let him do interviews to find someone who can be better than Kubiak as the HEAD COACH. We know Kubiak doesn't do THAT job well.
I can't imagine that any Bronco fans were advocating keeping Josh McDaniels around as head coach just so the passing game wouldn't suffer.
There aren't any franchises in the league holding on to coaches who aren't making the playoffs after 5 years. He's the only coach in the league who still has his job that hasn't made the playoffs after 5 years....and now we're talking about a 6th year?
Having an average defense this year would have gotten the Texans into the playoffs. Having an average defense this year would mean that this BBS would have threads comparing Kubiak to Bill Walsh.
