Daily Archives: April 9, 2006

Is Casserly gone?

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charlie_casserly2A.jpgProFootballTalk.com is reporting that embattled Texans General Manager Charlie Casserly will be replaced as the Texans GM after the upcoming NFL Draft:

A league source tells us that the Houston Texans plan to fire G.M. Charley Casserly after the 2006 draft. Casserly has been the franchise’s only general manager, joining the team more than two years before the Texans every played a game.
The plans to part ways with Casserly, we hear, are common knowledge within the upper reaches of the organization.
The move isn’t all that surprising. Owner Bob McNair brought in former Broncos, Giants, and Falcons coach Dan Reeves as a consultant late in the 2005 season, and charged Reeves with the task of, among other things, evaluating the team’s roster. Since that’s usually the G.M.’s function, it wasn’t a good sign for Casserly’s long-term job security.
And it’s not unusual for a team to hold on to a football executive through the April draft in lieu of firing him at the end of the season. Casserly, in January, was privy to much of the team’s free agency and draft strategies. He could have landed with another team and coughed up all sorts of sensitive information.
Casserly has spent nearly 30 years in the NFL, including 23 with the Redskins. He reportedly is under consideration for a position in the league office. His contract with the Texans runs through June 2007.

An inside perspective on DeLay’s fall

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DeLay12.jpgThis Sunday Washington Post op-ed by John Feehery, Tom DeLay‘s former Communications Director, provides an interesting perspective on DeLay’s fall — that DeLay’s strength of being willing to delegate was offset by his attraction to those who were willing to cut corners to win:

The overwhelming majority of DeLay’s staffers were professional, honest and working in Congress for the right reasons. But Tom prized the most aggressive staffers and most often heeded their counsel . . . A former hockey player, Tony Rudy was DeLay’s enforcer; he wasn’t evil, but lacked maturity and would do whatever necessary to protect his patron. Ed Buckham, DeLay’s chief of staff, gatekeeper and minister, constantly pushed DeLay to be more radical in his tactics and spun webs of intrigue we are only now beginning to unravel. And Michael Scanlon, who, in my experience, was a first-class rogue and a master of deception. People like Rudy and Scanlon pleased DeLay because they were always pushing the envelope . . . I don’t know if Tom always knew what his staff was doing — I know that I didn’t. But I had my suspicions, and now I have seen them borne out.

Check out the entire piece. Hat tip to Josh Marshall.