Before the football season, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair supposedly said that anything short of the playoffs for the team would be unacceptable. I say supposedly because here we are, in January, at the end of another non-playoff season, and not only is Gary Kubiak still the coach, there’s even talk of Kubiak being given a contract extension.
What kind of world is this where continued failure is continuously rewarded with work? Well, it’s Houston, the home (Houston Rockets excepted) of owners and fans who think that being mediocre is good enough to for a person to keep a job. And frankly, I’m disgusted.
Who cares if the Texans finished with a winning record for the first time in team history? That’s not really something to be celebrating because it shows just how damn bad this team has been. And instead of celebrating, maybe the fans should be demanding the head of the head coach and the general manager who, despite having a kicker who couldn’t hit the side of a barn while standing an inch away, refused to bring in any kickers during the regular season to compete for the job. Who knows, maybe instead of bitching about the Indianapolis Colts preventing Peyton Manning from falling prey to a Wes Welker-type injury in a meaningless game, the players should be bitching because their coach couldn’t be bothered to get a kicker who might be able to actually make an important kick against the Colts.
I know, Kris Brown is an original Texan. But that’s what’s wrong with
Gary Kubiak, Rick Smith, and Bob McNair. They care more about things
like original Texans than they do about really winning football games. When Joe Montana was having trouble during the later stage of his
career, Bill Walsh didn’t stick with him because he’d won his first
Super Bowl with Montana as his QB, he went with Steve Young because
Young gave the 49ers the best chance to win the game. Do you really
think Walsh would have kept letting Kris Brown trot out to miss PATs
because he was an original player? Hell no. Walsh would have had John
Carney in town as soon as the Saints decided to go with Garrett Hartley.
But
forget about Kris Brown. Can anybody really tell me what it is that
Kubiak has done to preserve his job? The running game is just as bad
now as it was when Kubiak took over. The entire team is still prone to
the kind of stupid penalties that you don’t see teams like the Colts
and Patriots making on a weekly basis. Kubiak still hasn’t shown a
complete understanding of clock management, game preparation, or player
motivation. And he still doesn’t quite seem to grasp that the best
Texan on the field isn’t Matt Schaub, it’s Andre Johnson.
Last
month, the Houston Chronicle‘s Richard Justice trotted out a tired argument about how, after 60 games, Kubiak’s record was about the same as the
records after 60 games of Jimmy Johnson, Bill Belichick, and Jeff
Fisher. So now I ask, is anybody going to trot the comparison of
Kubiak to these guys after four full seasons? Well, I will. And let’s
see. Johnson had the Cowboys in the playoffs for the second straight
season (they won the Super Bowl that year). Belichick had the Browns
in the playoffs. And Fisher was getting his squad finally settled into
Nashville and was getting ready to field a playoff team.
What do
we have to show with Kubiak after four seasons? A team that has yet to
reach the playoffs. A team that was 1-5 in division play — and could
easily have been 0-6. It’s a team that played an easy schedule and
struggled to win against some of the worst teams in football, and that
next season will be playing the Colts, Jaguars and Titans twice each,
the Jets, the Ravens, the Eagles, the Cowboys, the Chargers, the
Giants, and the Broncos — luckily, the NFL is going to let them play
the Redskins and the Raiders. So just what is there to suggest that
Kubiak will be able to make them a playoff team next year (I suppose
that Texans fans can hope the NFL schedules the Colts for the last two
games of the season and that, by then, the Colts have clinched a
playoff berth and will be using the third-string QB).
So go
ahead and throw the team a parade because they didn’t suck as bad as
they did last year. But maybe it’s time for the fans to stop accepting
mediocrity and force owners like McNair to actually care more about
fielding a wining team than hugging original Texans like Kris Brown on
the sidelines after they almost cost the team a game.
This article appears in Dec 31, 2009 – Jan 6, 2010.
