Bob McNair gave some quotes to HoustonTexans.com on just how confident he feels about the defense for this coming year now that Wade Phillips is on board. Lost in that was something that made me want to strangle everyone in my immediate vicinity cringe just a little bit. Here are the quotes:
↵↵"I told someone inside, I've never been so confident about our coaching staff as I am now," McNair said. "We have absolutely the best coaching staff we've ever had. It would've made a difference for us last year. It will make a difference for us this year, and I'm looking forward to it."
↵"I have so much more confidence," McNair said. "Generally, when you make any kind of change, you sort of hold your breath. You say, ‘Boy, I hope this works out.' I'm not saying that here. It will work out. He's done it. He's been there. He's come in, he's looked at our film, we've talked about it, and he just cut to the quick so fast. He saw exactly what our problems were, and he had ideas as to how they could be corrected that weren't necessarily requiring a lot of additional personnel. And I agree with him.
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As a reminder, Wade Phillips was unemployed as of the end of Week 9. The Texans, at that point, were 4-4 and had just allowed Philip Rivers to surgically dissect them with no-name receivers like Randy McMichael and Seyi Ajirotutu. On top of being on pace to be one of the worst defenses (specifically pass defenses) in NFL history. They were down, but far from out, and it was clear that Frank Bush's schemes and insistence on using Kareem Jackson and Eugene Wilson were killing the team. If they could've just made some in-season adjustments to bring the defense to mediocre, rather than awful, the Texans could've possibly rebounded back into the playoff discussion.
↵Instead, the Texans stuck with Bush and his staff. Stuck with Jackson until Jason Allen knew the system well enough to split snaps with him, and stuck with Wilson. Because Gary Kubiak totally believed in him. Or something like that.
↵I know it's completely taboo in the NFL to change defensive staffs in midseason. This was one of those rare cases where it was clear it should've happened. Instead, the Texans fielded a historically bad defense, lost six of their final eight, and allowed everyone from Tim Tebow to Kerry Collins to light them up. They had the leagues leading rusher, and Andre Johnson could have been the league's leading receiver had he needed to gut it out to get the Texans to the playoffs. Instead, they were 6-10. Because Kubiak believed in Bush.
↵As the kids say, SMDH.
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