DYSFUNCTION JUNCTION

I can't imagine what it's like to be a Detroit Lions fan, a fan of an organization that hasn't been relevant since the 1950's, but I feel like fans of the Houston Texans are starting to get a taste of it. I mean, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino couldn't make up some of the stuff the Texans are doing. I'll try to timeline this to the best of my ability, so be patient.

When the Texans kickoff the 2022 season this coming September, they will be doing so with a 3rd different head coach in as many seasons. They started the 2020 season with Bill O'Brien, who was fired after 4 games, where Romeo Crennel took over as interim head coach. They started the 2021 season with David Culley at the helm. Culley lasted all of 350 days before he was fired. And now, the 2022 season will have the Texans trotting out their 3rd different HC in as many seasons, as last season's Defensive Coordinator, Lovie Smith, becomes the 5th Head Coach of the Texans in their now 21 year history.

So here's how the events played themselves out.

On January 9th, the Texans played their final game of the season, losing to the Titans to finish the season 4-13, their 2nd consecutive 4 win season. That was the last regular season game for all NFL teams. The Monday after that last game is referred to as "Black Monday" for that's the day coaches who've had a bad season, get fired. Now, it doesn't always happen on that Monday, but enough to where it gets a special name.

There were coaches fired on "Black Monday" and one of them was former Dolphins HC Brian Flores. Flores was HC at Miami for 3 seasons. Before that, he was in the Patriots family for 15 years, all while Texans current GM Nick Caserio was in that organization as well. We're all aware of how the Texans are referred to as "Patriots South" with the way they've tried to emulate what the Patriots have done the last 2 decades, and have failed miserably thus far. Bill O'Brien was a Patriots guy. The late Bob McNair tried unsuccessfully for a few years to hire Caserio away from New England. They finally get him last January. Current Executive VP of Football Operations, Jack Easterby, was with the Patriots. Former Patriots players, Wes Welker and Mike Vrabel, were brought in to be coaches, and former Texans DC, still holding some sort of title with the Texans, Romeo Crennel, is from the Patriots family. So it's easy to see why the Texans got the label "Patriots South".

At the time of Flores' firing on January 10th, not much thought was given to it around these parts because the Texans were still employing David Culley as their HC. Culley even had a presser on Black Monday saying as far as he knew he was still head coach of the Texans. Well, that lasted 'til Thursday, January 13th, when the Texans fired Culley.

Now, Culley was hired to be fired, make no mistake about that. In last year's HC search, Texans go where no one had ever thought about going, and hired a man who wandered in the NFL coaching ranks for 27 years, never climbing the ladder beyond more than a position coach. So he'd never been thought of as head coaching material, never been interviewed, nothing. And that includes last January. NO ONE was interviewing David Culley except the Houston Texans. And it didn't take long to figure out Culley was in way over his head. But the Texans didn't hire him to be a "real" HC. O'Brien, and Easterby, who's still in the building, totally depleted the talent of this organization. The Texans didn't want to admit to their paying customers that they were in rebuild mode, and Culley, a positive, energetic man, was simply brought in to spin those positive vibes while the Texans try to dig the Titanic up off the seafloor. It was basically the same situation the Astros did when they were rebuilding and losing 100+ games for 3 straight years with Bo Porter at the helm. 

Other than the Texans having draft picks in the 1st 2 rounds of the draft, which they didn't have last year, they are not much better off than they were a year ago. All the 1 year contracts they signed players to last year, are all now free agents, and the roster turnover for the Texans this season is expected to be high again this year. So there's likely a lot of losing games still to come. That's why the firing of Culley after 350 days was somewhat of a surprise.

So with Culley out, the Texans find themselves in a HC search for a 2nd year in a row, both now under Caserio's watch. And with Flores, a long time Patriots guy, now available, eyeballs started turning to him. Now, when Caserio was hired last January, everyone and their brother thought that former Patriots OC Josh McDaniels would end up being the Texans HC once Caserio started turning things around. As the days went by, there were zero reports coming out that McDaniels would be interviewing with the Texans. Now, the Patriots were in the playoffs, so there was a little wait, but when they lost to the Bills on January 19th, there was still no indications of McDaniels and the Texans setting up any interviews.

In the meantime, the Texans start conducting interviews. And the very next day after Culley is fired, January 14th, the 1st interview goes to ... Brian Flores. That really had people thinking, well there's your Patriots connection. They fired Culley as soon as Flores becomes available. Coincidence? January 15th, the Texans interview 2 more. And I believe these early interviews are being done virtually, Zoom, or what have you. One is LA Chargers OC Joe Lombardi, the grandson of Vince Lombardi. The next interview that day was a head scratcher. It was former Steelers WR Hines Ward, who was an offensive assistant for the Jets for a couple of seasons, and a WR coach for Florida Atlantic University this past season. Not a lot of experience there, but it gets worse.

First though, on January 18th, the Texans bring in Eagles DC Jonathan Gannon. Gannon had several interviews lined up, and reports are that he had great interviews in all of them, including the Texans. In fact, the Texans brought him in for a 2nd interview on January 29th. A day after the 1st Gannon interview, January 19th, the Texans requested to interview Rams OC Kevin O'Connell. The Rams, of course, still in the playoffs, had to give permission. It's unclear if they actually did interview him, but if they did, that reportedly happened on January 27th.

Now some more WTF? On January 20th, the Texans bring in Josh McCown. OMG!! We went through this last year with McCown, a 17 year backup QB, who played for 12 different teams and had ZERO coaching experience. A year later, and nothing has changed. Still ZERO experience. In fact, he reportedly turned the Texans down last year when they offered him an assistant HC position after they hired Culley, to at least put something on his resume. He turned that opportunity down and instead decided to voluntarily coach his son's high school team, and as an assistant at that.

This is purely a Jack Easterby move. Before O'Brien was promoted to GM, Easterby was the acting GM and signed McCown as a 3rd string QB. They apparently hit it off big and are BFFs now. So not only is the ZERO experienced McCown in for a 2nd interview in as many season, the Texans bring him in for a freaking THIRD interview on January 28th.

So after the apparent O'Connell interview on January 27th, the Texans interview count was at 6 candidates. 2 of them had a combined 3 years experience, with 1 having ZERO experience. The Texans narrow the list down to 3 to do 2nd interviews. And the 1st of those was the guy with ZERO experience, Josh McCown, followed by Jonathan Gannon, and then on January 31st, Brian Flores had his 2nd interview.

The very next day, February 1st, a bombshell was dropped that Flores was filing a class action lawsuit against the NFL for discrimination in the hiring practices of minorities, for which he is. This despite being an NFL head coach for the last 3 seasons, getting interviewed by several teams in the days after being fired, and being one of 3 finalists for the Texans job. After that bombshell hit, we didn't hear a single peep out of Texansville for almost a week. At this point all we knew was the Texans had whittled their search down to 3. One was Gannon, a guy working his way through the ranks and climbing the ladder, one was McCown, a guy with ZERO coaching experience at any level, and one was Flores, a minority with a ton of experience, but who was also suing the NFL.

On February 5th, reports were finally trickling out that Gannon was out of the running. So now it's down to the experienced minority, Flores, who's suing for racial discrimination, and McCown, the pasty white guy with ZERO experience whatsoever. Yeah, only the Texans could put themselves between a rock and a hard place like that. I told you Spielberg or Tarantino couldn't make this up.

There were reports that in his 2nd interview, Flores told the Texans about the bomb he was about to drop. Still, the Texans considered him one of their 3 finalists. There were also reports that the Texans were strongly considering hiring McCown. Just think of the optics it would have presented had the Texans hired a white guy with ZERO experience over a minority with a ton of experience. That would have looked real good, though that shouldn't matter if it's the guy you want. But this is the world we live in, and the Texans seem to be pretty spineless in that world. But minorities or not, hiring McCown would have been a slap in the face to ANY person of ANY race, who's put the time in and done the grind, learning the ropes, and moving up the ladder.

So anyway, late on the February 6th, Sunday night, word starts coming out that neither Flores nor McCown will be hired. And in a total pay no attention to that man behind the curtain sort of deal, that absolutely no one saw coming, the Texans interview their current DC, Lovie Smith, who also happens to be a minority, and just like that, the 25 day search for a Texans head coach comes to an end. They get an experienced guy, as the 63 year old Smith has 20 years just in the NFL, including 11 years as a HC of Chicago and Tampa, and he's a minority. Killed 2 birds with 1 stone.

And of course the Texans spin it as if they had been talking to Lovie the whole time. Total bullshit. We're doing this 25 day search, putting every candidate we've interviewed on our website to try to be transparent to our fans, we've conducted 2nd interviews, named our 3 finalists, and we're throwing that all out the window and hiring the guy who's been in the building that we've secretly been talking to the whole time. Yeah, right. No, what happened is that they botched the head coach search last year, and they didn't learn a damn thing from it and botched it again this year.

So, GM Nick Caserio, hired last January, has now conducted 2 head coach searches in his first stint out from under the umbrella of Bill Belichick, and so far he's hired a HC that was on no one's radar (Culley), he interviewed 2 guys this year who were on no one's radar (McCown and Ward), and for the 2nd time hires a HC who was on no one's radar (Lovie). Caserio has been on the job for 398 days and is already on his 2nd HC. And let's not kid ourselves. Lovie isn't here long term. The Texans roster is light years away from competing for anything of relevance, so there's still going to be quite a bit of losing the next couple of years or so, at the very least. The Texans will be doing this all again in 2 years max.

I don't know of any GMs that get a shot to hire a 3rd HC, especially in a short amount of time, but this is the Texans, and they're so freaking dysfunctional that Caserio could probably hire a new HC every year of his 6 year deal, and then probably get an extension. Yeah, Lions fans are going, wow, that franchise is a mess.