Houston Texans’ owner Bob McNair completed his overhaul of the team’s management yesterday by naming former Denver Bronco’s assistant Rick Smith as the second general manager in the Texans’ five year history. Smith replaces Charley Casserly, who resigned last month amidst widespread criticism regarding the Texans’ player personnel choices and a disastrous previous season. McNair began the overhaul earlier this year by firing head coach Dom Capers and replacing him with former Broncos offensive coordinator and Houston native, Gary Kubiak.
The hiring of Smith also completes an interesting change in management philosophy for McNair, who originally went with the strong GM management approach in hiring Casserly as the Texans’ first employee. Casserly was the public face of the team’s management, much more so then former head coach Capers. Although that approach placed most authority in football operations in Casserly’s hands, it also sealed his fate as he became increasingly verbose with the media over the past season in attempting to deflect criticism over the team’s horrifying performance. My sense is that Casserly’s manipulation of the media during the team’s horrendous season did not sit well with McNair, a classy man who does not appreciate such public posturing.
With the hiring of Smith, McNair has completed the adoption of the Broncos’ management system in which the head coach has the decision-making authority on personnel matters and the GM serves in a support role. Under the Texans’ new regime, it’s clear that head coach Kubiak is calling the shots, just as Broncos coach Mike Shanahan does in Denver.
What’s particularly interesting about the shift in the Texans’ management philosophy is that Kubiak is getting far more power as an unproven coach than Capers ever received when he became the Texans first coach five years ago with a much more impressive resume than Kubiak. Capers took the expansion Carolina Panthers to the NFC title game in only their second season, and he was a successful NFL defensive coordinator before and after his tenure in Carolina. On the other hand, Kubiak’s sole NFL coaching experience prior to receiving extensive authority under the Texans’ new management approach is that of being the trusty sidekick to the Broncos’ Shanahan, who delegated limited authority to underlings in regard to running the Broncos’ offense.
In light of the foregoing, do you think the Miami Dolphins’ defense — which is now coached by Capers — might be hitting with a little more, might we say, “enthusiasm” when the Dolphins come to town on October 1 to play the Texans?
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I believe it is inaccurate to characterize Kubiak’s tenure with the Broncos as merely “trusty sidekick to the Broncos’ Shanahan, who delegated limited authority to underlings in regard to running the Broncos’ offense.” Do you have a source for that?
According to this article: http://www.winchesterstar.com/TheWinchesterStar/031111/Sports_coles.asp
“Early in the week, Spurrier resorted to asking advice from another head coach, Denver Broncosí Mike Shanahan. Spurrier, portrayed by many as arrogant when it comes to his offense, wanted to know how Shanahan handled play-calling duties with Broncosí offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak.
When Shanahan told Spurrier that the Broncos immediately won two Super Bowls when Kubiak took over calling plays, the second-year Redskinsí coach didnít need any more convincing.”
Other sources say the same thing. All my Bronco friends were teeth gnashing over the loss of Kubiak from their team.
I think that the issue with delegation is more getting a front office staff and coaching staff that is all on the same page and working from the same football philosophy. The learning I think was not so much on the delegation side of things but rather picking ONE football philosophy and running with it and getting the people you need to run it, even if they aren’t the people with the longest resumes.
That it isn’t so much GM v. coach in the new system, but rather they share the same philosophy and though they may sometimes disagree, they have a history together that lets them have a football shorthand.
Just a slightly different angle than the gossipy profootballtalk.com point of view.
BTW, I loved your Enron coverage. Best stuff written on the web.
Stephanie, Kubiak’s experience as an assistant coach for one team and in one system is not anywhere near as impressive as Capers much more diversified resume. That does not mean that Kubiak was not a successful assistant or that he won’t be a successful head coach with the Texans. What it does mean, however, is that Bob McNair is changing his management philosophy for the team and placing responsibility for that management in far less experienced hands than he had with Capers and Casserly. I’m hopeful that it works out, but I don’t think anyone should be surprised if it does not.
BTW, while Denver’s two Super Bowl victories are feathers in Kubiak’s cap, it should be noted that Denver’s performance has been much more pedestrian since Elway retired and T. Davis wore out.
A couple of thoughts:
To me, the problem with the Texans management style was from the beginning–the way they hired the coaching staff. Capers didn’t pick most his staff and philosophically there was a lot of stuff that didn’t mesh well. Lots of nice fat resumes but not a lot of philsophies that worked together and very few pre-existing personal relationships between coaches.
(How would you like to start a lawfirm from scratch, maybe a satellite office of a national firm–lots of superstar people who have never worked together from all different firms or a group of top notch lawyers who have worked together before at the same firm and who want to work together again? The model that usually works better is the second kind, because they can focus on the work and not so much the getting to know each other and power struggle thing. Analogy is stretched a little bit, I know, but it is an attempt)
Given what I’ve heard, the player personnel that Casserly got at the top of the draft and free agency were all Caper’s picks. In reality, though Cass was seen by some as a powerful GM, he really didn’t act on that authority other than being the face for the Texans on these matters. But that is all gossip.
I think what is important about this is not what the flowchart says or doesn’t say about who’s in charge (most of the nice talk is all about sharing responsibility), the important part in my mind and for the bottom line is that McNair has picked a coach and is actually letting that coach create his own vision of the team on his terms.
My most recent blog post has a more in depth discussion of how I see the Rick Smith hire.
Oh, and as for the Bronco’s “pedestrian” performances as of late, I think most franchises would be pretty happy with such consistency. It’s hard to be that consistant in the NFL salary cap/parity age.
BTW, I wrote another comment on the Lakeside thing and apparently it was blocked by your filter. I have no idea why. Just thought you would want to know (unless this one gets rejected too).