NFL 2021

[The Buscher]

 

[gunnar hendershow]

Can't wait until the Super Bowl is in Vegas.

[The Buscher]

So basically here's a timeline of the Texans' hiring decisions the last two years.

• Texans interview McCown in 2021, when he hadn't even filed retirement papers
• They were impressed with McCown but knew the optics of hiring him would be bad
• While they mulled whether or not to take the PR hit and hire him, Black coaches went like 0-7 in job searches leaguewide, meaning the hiring backlash would be even worse
• Instead, they hired David Culley who was on nobody's radar
• "See, an unexpected Black coach got hired!  The Rooney Rule works!" the league kids itself ignoring that Culley was pretty obviously being set up to be a placeholder hire
• Texans were predicted by many to go 0-17 or 1-16, go 4-13
• Despite this, Culley is fired as the team always planned
• Right back to being infatuated with the idea of hiring McCown, to the point where they were practically begging another team to interview him to legitimize their planned hire
• They took too long, again, Black coaches again had a bad hiring cycle and now Flores is suing the league
• The two finalists are reportedly McCown and Flores, putting the Texans in an impossible spot
• Suddenly Lovie Smith who was supposedly being "internally discussed" is now the favorite for the job out of the blue

I think it's pretty clear that A) the league will freeze out Flores and B) the Texans want to hire McCown.  But I 100% believe the league has actually intervened at this point and has told the Texans that with this lawsuit they cannot hire McCown over Flores under any circumstances.  So Lovie feels like the compromise candidate between the team and league.  But really, they could've avoided this by just keeping Culley after he arguably overachieved with a Watson-less roster.

The Texans are incompetent but also being used to take arrows for the league.

[gunnar hendershow]

I'm expecting the Saints, who are entering a true rebuild, to do the same. League is begging its teams who don't have a shot at competing to hire black HCs after the Flores lawsuit got launched.

[The Buscher]

25 minutes ago, damshow said:

I'm expecting the Saints, who are entering a true rebuild, to do the same. League is begging its teams who don't have a shot at competing to hire black HCs after the Flores lawsuit got launched.

Yeah, it sounds like the Saints want to hire Dennis Allen, who already has a failed run as a head coach but in fairness he's done a good job with the defense and has been there since 2015.

But you have Leftwich sitting there after the big clusterfuck with the Jags, and Bieniemy who was the biggest snub two years in a row and only finally just got his first interview of the coaching cycle with the Saints.  The league has to be asking the Saints to hire either of them.

And that's not to say either of them aren't deserving...they are.  But it's an extra slap in the face that it's going to look like they only got hired to try to save face for the league instead of on merit.

Ditto for Lovie.  Lovie is way more qualified to lead a team than McCown, but all the reporting suggests that McCown, despite not being deserving, is the one being fucked out of a job he otherwise would've been hired for.  This whole thing is a mess.

[Chris2K]

I know J-Bell and Osi are very good, but Mike is the best NFL analyst in the country and not using him is criminal.

[Lineker]

Right on cue:

 

 

[gunnar hendershow]

McCown to just linger on the staff for one or two years before they promote him I assume.

[Maxx]

14 minutes ago, damshow said:

McCown to just linger on the staff for one or two years before they promote him I assume.

Yeah, Texans pulling a Jason Garrett, stash the trash for future use.

[The Buscher]

It's still absolutely wild to me that Andrew Whitworth is still not only playing left tackle at 40 years old but doing so at high level.  He's had the Barry Bonds aging curve.  Dude's probably getting "randomly selected" for piss tests weekly.

[gunnar hendershow]

One stat that blows my mind about him is that he played in college for Nick Saban, at LSU.

[The Buscher]

Kyler Murray's unfollowed the Cardinals and scrubbed all references about them off of of his social media.  I think stuff like this is overblown all the time, but such is the era we live in.

Worth noting that this offseason is the earliest the team would be allowed to give him a contract extension.

[Krabby]

33 minutes ago, CM Busch said:

Kyler Murray's unfollowed the Cardinals and scrubbed all references about them off of of his social media.  I think stuff like this is overblown all the time, but such is the era we live in.

Worth noting that this offseason is the earliest the team would be allowed to give him a contract extension.

Has he been particularly mistreated by them? 

[LL!]

I haven't heard of Kyler having any issues with management or vice versa. So it is interesting that it happened. 

[Adam]

Been no issues with Kyler and the team to my knowledge. 

Not got a clue what's going on, if anything is. He's an interesting cat so it might well be nothing, but we'll see.

I am used to being hurt.

[Lineker]

 

[gunnar hendershow]

Bieniemy shut out 4 years straight. Allen is a safe hire for NO so I can't give it to much criticism, a good handoff from Payton. With their next 2-3 years likely requiring a full rebuild Bieniemy would've been fired sooner rather than later from that job.

[The Buscher]

I don’t think Allen is an egregious hire given how long he’s been there.  But it being Bieniemy’s only interview of the cycle is more telling.  Whether he’s a lousy interview or teams are worried about stuff he did 20+ years ago being blown up again by the media, I’m not sure.

He and Jim Caldwell should probably join Flores’ lawsuit.

[GhostMachine]

I have no problem with the Allen hire, but I agree about Bieniemy and Caldwell joining Flores' lawsuit. There's some straight up bs going on.

Edited February 8, 2022 by GhostMachine

[Lowerdeck]

21 hours ago, CM Busch said:

The Texans are incompetent but also being used to take arrows for the league.

 

For a minute, I thought Flores might of had a chance in Houston.  They basically are trying to be the Patriots South, but are way too incompetent to pull it off.