IMHO. As much as some fans would love to absolve Easterby of the mistakes of the BOB era and make him out to be some white knight riding into NRG. You cannot separate Easterby from the decisions made when he and O'Brien were together. For example, read the transcript and video from the press conference announcing Watson's contract. Easterby is right there proudly smiling and even taking questions from reporters. During the BOB era, he was like a friend who encourage and support your worst instincts and then abandon you when things go wrong.
Easterby was fully involved in the contract negotiations. BOB gave him credit for his involvement, and I wouldn't be surprised that he is the one who gave Watson that NTC. Which always leads to the question. Why the hell was Easterby negotiating contracts? He had no experience negotiating contracts and the McNairs were foolish to give him that power. That's why they ended up with the Murray, Cunningham, Cobb and even Tunsil contracts. Tunsil negotiated his own contract and still got an above market deal.
Bill O'Brien's press conference remarks:
"I want to obviously thank the McNairs, Cal and Janice McNair are here tonight, their support of what we're trying to do here with Deshaun has just been awesome. It's just been tremendous support and we've only started this journey really.
I also want to thank Jack Easterby. He's standing here too. Jack Easterby did a tremendous job. Along with Deshaun's representative, David Mulugheta, who was a tremendous representative of Deshaun. Jack and David worked together a lot on this contract and were able to come to an agreement this morning. And so we're thrilled, obviously we're thrilled. With that, I'll open it up to questions."
Houston Texans Quarterback Deshaun Watson meets with the media after signing his contract extension with the team.