What do the Rockets, Astros, and Texans all have in common? All three Houston based teams have lost franchise cornerstones dating back to December 2019. The Rockets recently dealt James Harden to the Brooklyn Nets for a record setting haul of picks. Prior to that, they cut ties with Russell Westbrook, though his time in the Houston area was much shorter. The Astros lost Gerrit Cole to the Yankees, followed by George Springer taking his talents north of the border to Toronto. Their departures marked two key pieces of the team that was a perennial pennant contender electing to find out whether the grass truly was greener on the other side.
Yet the most egregious of all departures belong to the Houston Texans, who after coughing up a 24-0 lead to the Chiefs in the playoffs last year will be taking the field with an almost unrecognizable roster in 2021. Gone is Head Coach/GM Bill O’Brien (who after starting the season winless, clearly lost the locker room and was subsequently let go). DeAndre Hopkins was traded to Arizona for pennies on the dollar. Deshaun Watson has made it public that he has no interest in taking another snap for the franchise. And the icing on the cake, franchise icon, and “Honorary Houston Son” JJ Watt was released by the team today (this is also glossing over the fact that the Texans also let Tyrann Mathieu walk in free agency, and traded Jadeveon Clowney for a 3rd round pick recently as well).
In his time with the Texans, JJ has made a massive impact both on and off the field. A 3x Defensive player of the year winner (only Aaron Donald and Lawrence Taylor have accomplished that feat), 5x 1st team All Pro, 5x Pro Bowler, Walter Payton Man of The Year winner, and helped to raise roughly $40M in hurricane relief for Houston area residents following Hurricane Harvey. To say that his departure will hurt fans a little more than the usual parting of ways with a player would be an understatement.
But if we look at the situation from a macro perspective, it begs the question: What is going on in Houston? You’ve got a warm weather climate, no state income tax, the most populous city in Texas, and a food scene bursting with culinary creations. Not to mention, the Astros, Texans and Rockets regularly rank among the top attendance figures in their respective leagues. In theory athletes should be pounding on the door to play in H-town.
So if it isn’t external factors that are leading to the athlete exodus, then it would stand to reason that internal forces are pushing them out the door. Namely, the ownership groups. The Astros had their cheating scandal (which the modified 2020 MLB season has to be viewed as the biggest get out of jail free card in recent sports memory, it likely saved 80-100 heaters getting tossed at Astros batters and millions of boos from fans). The Rockets have their less than rosy image surrounding Tilman Fertitta and his internal policies as a factor to consider in Russ/Harden/Daryl Morey leaving town. And the dumpster fire that is the Houston Texans franchise falls squarely at the feet of the McNair family.
There’s a reason that Head Coach and GM are separate jobs. Rarely if ever does a team find success when they combine the two most important front office positions in all of football. For every Bill Belichick you can point to as a success story, there’s dozens of catastrophic examples of a Head Coach/GM hybrid plunging a franchise into a tailspin.
Why does it so rarely work you ask? Because there’s just too much that goes into each position on a day to day basis for one person to do both. Moreover, when a team starts underperforming the first thing that usually happens is the coach gets put on the hot seat. When the coach gets put on the hot seat, they start asking the GM to shake things up with a trade, or a “homerun swing” on a draft pick. They know that if they aren’t able to turn things around, it won’t be the star athlete on a multi-year contract getting the axe, it’ll be them. A good GM acts as a checks and balance system with the coach, weighing the short term gain with the long term ramifications. When you remove that safety valve, there’s no one to overrule a knee jerk reaction. What does a coach care if they cripple the franchise for years to come if they won’t be around to deal with it? Their focus is on keeping themselves employed, not to make the job of the person replacing them easier.
Enter Bill O’Brien. When he let Tyrann walk, failed to get market value for Clowney, and subsequently traded Hopkins for an aging running back several years removed from his last productive season, he all but sealed his own fate. Which paved the way for Jack Easterby to rise to an even more prominent role within the organization. This move evidently didn’t sit well with front office personnel (many of which had been with the organization since its inception) leading to a rash of resignations and dismissals. With management in flux, you need a competent ownership group to step in and right the ship. That didn’t happen in Houston.
The writing was on the wall that 2020 was a lost season well before the trade deadline. By that time, football ops personnel and players alike were starting to subtly (and some not so subtly) voice their displeasure with the direction of the team. THAT would have been the right time to make a decision on JJ’s future with the organization. THAT would have been the proactive approach to the situation.
Instead, on Feb 12th the Texans released the best player to ever suit up for the franchise for nothing. No draft picks, no players, no future considerations, nothing. Yes, they get some financial relief in a year where the salary cap is likely to go down. But what good is that cap space when there isn’t a free agent out there who is looking at Houston as a viable destination? The only free agents who will be inquiring about voluntarily signing up for the multi-car pile up known as the Houston Texans will be aging veterans looking for one last big payday, athletes coming off major injuries who are looking for guaranteed money up front, and whatever players the rest of the 31 teams have no interest in.
The Texans will essentially be forced to pay Ferrari prices for a Minivan product on the free agent front. At least by receiving a mid round pick at the deadline, the Texans would’ve been able to bring in a college product at a position of need. Afterall, rookies don’t have the luxury of choosing where they end up.
Making the situation even less attractive to potential free agents is the uncertainty around Deshaun Watson. Ownership has said they have no plans to move on from the QB. Now, whether this would be simple posturing to drive up the price (which would be smart) or a genuine belief (which would be dumb) remains to be seen. Deshaun’s value is as high as it’s going to be right now, pre-draft. If you wait until pre-season to see if he holds out or changes his mind, you’ve now torpedoed his value as the QB needy teams inquiring about him have already made other plans for the season. Don’t get me wrong, there will still be a market for him whenever the team tries to trade him. But you’re likely looking at a significantly lower haul than you’d get now.
Yet the biggest head scratcher of them all is the organization’s hiring of David Culley to be their next head coach. Culley (65) becomes the NFL’s oldest first time hire for a head coaching position. If you’re looking to mend the bridge between Deshaun and the franchise, bringing in Culley is a swing and a miss. In his last two seasons in Baltimore where he was the passing game coordinator, the Ravens ranked last in pass attempts, and last in passing yards (2020), and last in passing attempts and 27th in passing yards (2019). Prior to that he was the QB coach for Josh Allen when he had 10TD’s & 12INTs with a paltry 52.8 completion percentage. We’ve all seen how Allen has progressed since then. But wait, there’s more! Before his stint in Buffalo, he was the wide receivers coach in Kansas City in 2014 when the Chiefs combined for a total of ZERO TD’s from a wide receiver.
What about the above indicates that he’ll be the man to turn things around in Houston? It’s not the fans that do the hiring. It’s not the players that do the hiring. So who else can you point the finger at for the debacle on the Houston sports scene in the last year other than the owners?
Cleveland and Buffalo seem to be slowly exercising their demons as the most tortured fan bases in pro sports. The Cavs can always look fondly on their LeBron title a few years back, and the Browns seem to finally have a roster fans can be proud of. Buffalo meanwhile seems to be 1 or 2 pieces away from being a legitimate Super Bowl contender next year, and Bills Mafia has gone from cult status, to internationally renowned fanclub. Which means the torch may be getting passed to a new team on the NFL front. And with the Houston Texans poised to be in the basement for the foreseeable future, ownership seems hell bent on making sure they grab that title and run with it.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @dynessports