Casserly's Future

[Ibar_Harry]

Originally Posted by NoBullTexan

I have read with interest the above posts, and to a degree, all have made a point. I have several other slants that might also be of interest:

1.) Casserly helped McNair put this organization together a couple of years before it actually took the field with a team. Mcnair, like any good executive today, delegated certain functions to Casserly, which is to hire and fire the coaches, and to be the final judge on which players we should get. In the beginning, the genesis if you will, of this team, he put together a pretty good beginning.

2.) For the first two or three years opposing teams didn't take us too seriously, allowing us to slip up on several, and win. As time went on we began to be more seriously thought of, and defenses, especially at the end of year three were gameplanning very seriously against us. The Cleveland game last year was the start of other teams having enough information on us to start really bulding the defenses to stop our offense. That is when the offense of Palmer, and the defense of Capers (Fangio) began to unravel, and be shown to be substandard. Some of it was due to decisions made on personnel, and some of it was pure inflexibility on the part of the coaching staff. At that time, after that game, the players began to doubt the veracity of some of the decisions the coaches made, and started to tune out. Nothing of any substance was done so the malignancy began to grow and get biffer until now, in the fourth game of the 2005 season, it has reached full flowerhood. The coaching staff is inflexible, some poor personnel desicions were made, and now the team is in full disarray.

3.) Casserly has allowed Capers, Palmer, and Fangio to make too many personnel decisions, and NOW is when McNair, the ultimate buck stop, should take charge, either get rid of Casserly and Capers and the rest of the coaching staff, and start over from here, or, and here is what I think he will do, he will put Casserly square on the spot, make him make the decisions he should have already made, and get rid of Capers, and start the task of hunting a coach who will right this listing ship. Casserly is just too close to the top to be let go now. BUT, if he doesn't turn this thing around pretty quick, his may be the next butt to be kicked out.

I would agree with your analysis to a large degree. I still think its Capers and his coaching staff who are the problem and not the players, Casserly or McNair. What I blame Casserly and McNair for is buying into the Capers and company BS too long.

[Vinny]

Originally Posted by eriadoc

So does Capers, so do the assistant coaches. Exactly where do the scouts fit into this scenario? I'm not exonerating Casserly at all - I just don't think we have enough information.

You said Casserly is not a talent evaluator but in reality he fancies himself as a Scout, and to be fair to him he does well on his second day picks. He clearly struggles on the first day of his drafts and nobody knows how much of it is Casserly and how much is the product of our scouting dept.

[Hervoyel]

Originally Posted by NoBullTexan

For the first two or three years opposing teams didn't take us too seriously, allowing us to slip up on several, and win. As time went on we began to be more seriously thought of, and defenses, especially at the end of year three were gameplanning very seriously against us. The Cleveland game last year was the start of other teams having enough information on us to start really bulding the defenses to stop our offense. That is when the offense of Palmer, and the defense of Capers (Fangio) began to unravel, and be shown to be substandard.

I can't really agree with this. Yes some teams did allow the Texans to hang around too long in games but most of the time those teams got their butts in gear and took care of business against us. Remember the Chargers in 2002? They didn't take the Texans lightly. They beat our butts. The Eagles that year allowed us to hang around for a while but then turned it on and put us away. The Steelers completely dominated us and I'd bet that if we hadn't played them on the first Sunday that Tommy Maddox came back from his head injury we would have been soundly defeated. In 2002 the only two teams that took the Texans lightly and then lost as a result were the Cowboys and the Jaguars. Pittsburgh and the Giants both had issues unrelated to playing an expansion team.

That pattern repeated itself in 2003. We won 5 games. Miami took us lightly, Jacksonville got beat on the last play of the game and had rookie QB issues that contributed to their loss. Carolina took us lightly and lost as a result of doing so. Buffalo just wasn't a very good team and Atlanta had no Michael Vick.

Most everyone took the Texans seriously enough in their first two years. Last season the wheels didn't come off against Cleveland in the final game. They came off against Denver. We started the 2004 season failing to execute against San Diego and Detroit. Then we had an emotional win in Kansas City which got the team on a roll but, it was by no means a sign that we kicked butt. KC had a lousy defense, Oakland stunk last year, Tennessee stunk last year, and Jacksonville for some reason just tends to lose against us. In the middle of that run we had a cool comeback against the Vikings that fell short. Big deal.

Look at who we beat last year and the toughest opponent we defeated was who? Jacksonville at 9-7? Maybe Kansas City? We didn't beat a single truly good team and we even lost to some bad ones. Good teams owned us and they continue to own us.

[Ibar_Harry]

Originally Posted by Vinny

You said Casserly is not a talent evaluator but in reality he fancies himself as a Scout, and to be fair to him he does well on his second day picks. He clearly struggles on the first day of his drafts and nobody knows how much of it is Casserly and how much is the product of our scouting dept.

I find this statement kind of funny. I know you don't like Carr, but AJ, DROB and TJ are 1st day picks along with Babin and PBuc. The last 4 were picks wanted by Capers and his staff. I truely believe Casserly is deferring to Capers and his staff as to who they want. I can't see where AJ and DROB are bad picks. We will disagree on Carr, but TJ was really a Capers' pick. I still believe the biggest problem with our draft picks is the lack of coaching and the fact that most don't fit into Capers' system. They are though to be fits, but they turn out not to be for whatever reason. I think its a reach to blame so much of our problems on Casserly other than nobody wants to give up on Capers including McLain. He's touting how great a guy Capers is. Its strange, because we all agree he really is a nice guy and we would all be honored to have him as our best friend. This discussion is however about ability to coach football and it would appear he just doesn't have it to be a head coach. That's probably true of most of us here. That doesn't make us a better or worse person, but it does affect whether or not one should be the head coach of the Texans.

[eriadoc]

You said Casserly is not a talent evaluator but in reality he fancies himself as a Scout....

He can fancy himself to be whatever he wants to be, but he's not. If he's overriding people who actually have the job of talent evaluation on a consistent basis, and he's wrong, then yes, he deserves to be fired. If he's overriding them and he's right, then we need some new scouts. Either way, he can't be everywhere at once and he can fancy himself to be a talent evaluator, but truth be told, he has people on staff to scout that talent for him. He has too many other things keeping him from spending 15 hours a day on talent evaluation. I do get what you're saying, though.

[Vinny]

He goes on scouting trips and evaluates talent...I don't know what you call it.

[HoustonFan]

Originally Posted by JfromthaTray

...a new coach who's also the GM (I don't know how many of you feel about that), or get both who can work together and be on the same page.

Hmmm. I'm sure this has been done. But who are some HC/GMs that have been successful at both positions?