Easterby’s sudden ascent to power has generated intense curiosity and, depending on whom you ask, either admiration or scrutiny. He has not conducted any on-the-record interviews since September, leaving others to make sense of perhaps the NFL’s most polarizing executive. In response to interview requests for Easterby and team owner Cal McNair, as well a list of 83 questions regarding the details of this story, a Texans spokesperson provided broad statements on behalf of McNair and Easterby (which can be
read in full here). To
Sports Illustrated, some called the 37-year-old a guiding force in their lives, a beloved minister and mentor who shepherded two NFL franchises through difficult times and became part of the foundation of the Patriots’ late-dynasty years, earning him a rare spot in Bill Belichick’s inner circle. Many in Houston, though, have not seen him as the congenial confidant and Belichick foil. Rather, they describe an authority figure whose leadership style sows distrust and division, at times flouting rules and straining relationships inside the building. Meanwhile, his responsibilities expanded despite questions surrounding his credentials.
Conversations with more than 40 people—current and former Texans football operations staff and players, colleagues from Easterby’s time in New England, those from his past in and out of football—provided detailed accounts of his alleged role in, among other things:
- Undermining other executives and decision-makers, including the head coach who helped bring him to Houston.
- The team’s holding workouts at the head strength coach’s house during the COVID-19 pandemic after the NFL had ordered franchises to shut down all facilities, shortly before a breakout of infections among players.
- Advocating for a trade of star receiver DeAndre Hopkins soon after arriving in Houston—one season before Hopkins was sent to Arizona in a widely panned deal.
- Fostering a culture of distrust among staff and players to the point that one Texan and two other staffers believed players were being surveilled outside the building.
When SI began making phone calls in October to make sense of Easterby’s improbable path, he quickly caught wind and reached out to a reporter, saying that he wanted to help communicate “truth and honesty.” Easterby did not return a text message, sent Tuesday, offering a chance to tell his side of the story. But colleagues who spoke to SI—many requesting anonymity, like the player, for fear of retribution—said they felt compelled to share their own truth in the hopes of opening the eyes of McNair, of whom one source said: “[He] is just blinded.” There is a perception inside the Texans’ building that Easterby won a power struggle, completing his climb. And in doing so, these sources say, the character coach brought in to improve the culture has made it worse.
Within his first few weeks with the Texans, though, Easterby began making requests of multiple football operations departments to prepare presentations or reports, seeking specific information without disclosing how it would be used. Easterby framed these asks as a learning exercise. Looking back now, many of his colleagues wonder whether he was collecting the intel he would need to run a team.
The character coach also freely shared with other members of the organization what some saw as unfair or inaccurate perceptions of players, including the notion that Watson and Hopkins didn’t get along when in actuality, others saw the two as close friends. Or that one Texans veteran had a gambling problem, a description with which other staffers disagreed. Last January, the Texans fired Chris Olsen, their longtime contract negotiator. Easterby subsequently took on a lead role in negotiating contracts—O’Brien publicly credited him for closing extensions for Watson and linebacker Zach Cunningham—some of which have been widely criticized for their player-friendly structures.
While Easterby aspires to be a transformational leader, guided by religion and morality, people who have worked alongside him in Houston have increasingly come to see him as transactional. Says a colleague: “If you combine a faith-healing televangelist with Littlefinger, you’d get Jack Easterby.”
While Easterby did forge some connections, four people who worked for the Texans around this time say that he did not have a relationship with Hopkins, one of the team’s most important players. Hopkins had earned first-team All-Pro honors in each of the three seasons since Houston drafted Watson in 2017. The emerging quarterback and star receiver led Houston to back-to-back division titles in ’18 and ’19. They also shared a close bond that extended beyond their prolific relationship on the field; the players jointly held a Thanksgiving dinner for teammates and members of the organization who didn’t have family in town for the holiday.
O’Brien, who assumed the GM title nine months before being fired, took the brunt of the backlash for Hopkins’s unpopular trade, which has proved to be lopsided. While O’Brien negotiated the terms—the consensus was that the coach wanted to trade Hopkins as well—the same sources who recounted Easterby’s perceived coldness to Hopkins say it went further: They describe Easterby as the first, and most persistent, advocate for the team’s trading the receiver out of Houston. One of these people recalls hearing Easterby saying about Hopkins in front of small groups of people on multiple occasions in 2019, “We need to move on from
that person,” without using his name. Another recalls learning that the Texans discussed trading Hopkins as early as the summer of 2019.
Hopkins’s trade left a void in the Texans’ offense and in the locker room. The receiver often led a call and response when breaking down meetings, calling out “Glory!” to which his teammates would respond “Hallelujah!” Watson carried on that tradition this season as a nod to his former teammate, and Hopkins agreed to a two-year extension with the Cardinals. (Hopkins is No. 2 in the NFL with 85 catches.)
Some of Easterby’s staples weren’t as effective in Houston as they had been at previous stops. Those motivational cards from his South Carolina days traveled to New England, and then to Houston, where they were customized with the Texans’ logo. Each week, a new card would appear on players’ stools in the locker room and on employees’ desks. Members of the organization asked one another if they could throw the cards away without repercussions—at least one did. Eventually word reached Easterby: This particular tool had not resonated.
Easterby also began occasionally addressing the team on the nights preceding games, turning the meeting room into his pulpit. But some of his efforts to relate to the majority-Black roster occasionally failed him; in some cases he even caused offense. During one Saturday-night meeting in 2019, Easterby, who is white and cites Martin Luther King Jr. as a role model, asked players to think back to when they were growing up “playing ball with Ray-Ray and Ki-Ki and them,” according to three people in the room for these meetings. Some saw the language as more of a misguided attempt to fit in—players often called Easterby a “try-hard.” But at least one person was bothered enough by what they saw as a use of Black stereotypes that they debated saying something to Easterby. (They decided not to take on that conversation with a game the next day.) A few weeks later, one of the sources says, Easterby used similar language again.
A culture of distrust had started to permeate the organization. Multiple Texans from Easterby’s tenure say they began to watch what they would say in conversations with him, nervous that the culture coach was looking for reasons to move out people with different values or lifestyles. Those worries weren’t limited to the workplace. One player was so convinced he was being followed by someone representing the team that he paid a friend to watch the dark sedan he says he observed frequently parked outside his house. He even went so far as to log license plate numbers of unfamiliar cars. Two other members of the organization shared the player’s concerns that members of the team were being surveilled away from the building. (The Texans did not respond to specific questions about these accounts.)
