JJo is great but he was a "don't fire me move" when Smith botched the secondary and wasted a season. Any kind of a defense gets that 2010 team in the playoffs. The quick fix burns you later though. He came at the cost of Meco and Winston which turned out to be big problems when our ILB depth hit -3 in a hurry last year and our right side blocking was hot garbage. I didn't even mention Mario, lol.
How is it Rick's fault that Gary hired a guy, Frank Bush, whom Gary waited upon until Frank Bush's contract with the Arizona Cardinals was up??? Gary Kubiak chose Richard Smith, our first d-coord...Gary Kubiak, as has been proven via interviews and reports, also wanted Frank Bush but Bush was tied up at the time with the Cardinals. Once Bush's contract finally concluded, he was brought aboard and assisted Richard Smith until Richard Smith was fired and GARY KUBIAK finally was able to transition Bush into the d-coord role.
NONE of that is on Rick Smith. The bad defense was bad because of incompetency on the coaching level, which means when your foundation is poor anything built upon it will be bad, too, no matter how hard you try.
Rick Smith does not make coaching decisions in terms of employment. I've never read or listened to anything that proves otherwise. Rick is in charge of many things, chief among them is the scouting of players and the attempts to sign them to our team...Gary has made several references, most of which came during an in-camp interview with Gary a season or two ago, in which we learn that often times Rick and the scouting team have a list of players and they help Gary with identifying and eventually signing those players the team determines would fit Gary's needs. Rick is not choosing and signing Gary's assistant coaches, not even the d-coordinators. That's Gary's responsibility, and I'm sure he does have meetings with Bob and Rick when he wants to make a move on those things...but hey, he didn't make a move on firing Frank Bush until his hand was practically forced after 2010. In fact, an interview with Bob McNair reveals that Bob said he wondered if Gary would let his loyalty to his coaches get himself fired in the same way that Capers' loyalty to coaches got Capers fired several years prior. See? Coaching decisions are GARY'S responsibility.
Therefore, sure, Rick is helping to stock the roster according to what the coaches say they want. Lists are made, inquiries to agents are made, tryouts are usually held, and then the team makes a decision. That's normalcy at work. I'm sure each coach stands on the table for guys they demand they have, whenever other personnel might be opposed to those players and conversely wanting a different player. It happens. I can guarantee you the biggest Schaub advocate on this team is the head coach. Period.
All of this is to say this: After 2010, it's my firm belief that Bob McNair was s angry as he had ever been. As dejected as he had ever been. He had had enough. I firmly believe that he sat down with Rick, Gary, whomever else, and they all discussed this thing as passionately as they could. At the end of that scenario, I also firmly believe that Bob and Rick and Gary all three agreed that it was Go For Broke time. Push all the chips into the center of the table, let the payment came due in later seasons if it had to come due, but that we were committed to working as a focused team toward making some radical changes.
Up until then, our biggest moves were (in no particular order):
1. Taking on a slew of Jaguars in an expansion draft scenario that gave us a guy in Boselli who would never see the field of play again. Ever.
2. Drafting a QB that the owner fell in love with because of things non-football related. Obviously. And plus, that's what you do when you have the #1 pick and you're a new team...you pick a QB right out of the gate.
3. So many awful RBs, you cannot even name them all. Stacy Mack, James Allen, Tony Hollings, Jonathan Wells, Wali Lundy, Samkon Gado, Ron Dayne, Chris Brown, the list goes on forever.
4. Ahman Green. Ugh. THAT was heralded as being a really, really BIG move for the Texans. Along with Eric Moulds. We had twice as many pages on this message board about the potential to sign Eric Moulds as we've had for Ed Reed. LOL. Amazing, no?
5. Extended David Carr for an extra year, to see if Kubiak could work with him and rebuild him. That was a Bob McNair move all the way.
6. Philip Buchanon at CB, in a trade with the Raiders. Holy cow, what a travesty that trade ended up being. It was criminal. That's on Casserly all the way.
7. Tried to trade Carr but couldn't, so we had to release him. And the guy trashes us out every chance he got after that. Schaub was the best FA/trade acquisition we had made in years.
But hey, let's talk about the post-2010 decision and how we're "paying for it now." We actually have something to look at for our payments we're making, and that was a joint effort, IMO, between Bob and Gary and Rick.
Of those three, however, I don't see the GM as being the guy that needed the convincing. Bob and Gary are the loyalists. Rick is very lone wolf, do whatever it takes. When players get whacked, it came from Rick's pistol. And the guy isn't upset about that role at all. He relishes it you can see it in him when he speaks about his roles with the team. Neither Bob nor Gary want that blood on their hands. They're culpable, but they're insulated and distanced from it.
Up until 2010, it was a philosophy of "Steady as she goes....stay the course...we'll hit smooth waters SOMEDAY...just don't rock the boat." Now we've got something to honestly maintain and build upon, and people think we've mismanaged the team???????????? I don't get it, I guess.
