The Houston Texans Have Not Learned Their Lesson

As expected, the Houston Texans had an ugly season. Quarterback Davis Mills regressed, the offense as a whole was one of the worst in football, and they only won three games. To make matters even worse, they lost the number one overall pick on Sunday. Head Coach Lovie Smith is now fired, the third coach in three seasons. And for the past several years, the Texans have just simply been inept.

The #Texans have fired coach Lovie Smith, per me and @MikeGarafolo. Another one-and-done in Houston. pic.twitter.com/1Ld7PxCGUq

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 9, 2023

The Houston Coaching Search

Lovie Smith is not the first coach that Houston has fired after one year. Just last season, David Culley was fired after a 4-13 season. The Texans then raised eyebrows when they interviewed former quarterback Josh McCown. McCown was on the Texans’ roster in 2020 but had no coaching experience outside of high school. In fact, McCown had two interviews with the team. However, they would soon reverse course and hire the more experienced Smith, who coached Chicago and Tampa Bay before Houston.

The result went as predictably as one can expect. The Texans were one-tenth of a point away from the worst-scoring offense in the NFL. Davis Mills had a 33.1 QBR, the third worst in the league. And the defense, while featuring a promising secondary, gave up a league-high 170 yards per game. As a result, they had the sixth-worst-scoring defense and finished 3-13-1. The possible saving grace was that they were in line for the first overall pick. However, thanks to a last-minute collapse of the Indianapolis Colts, who may be equally bad, the Texans lost the pick to the Chicago Bears. Lovie Smith was fired not even 24 hours after the game.

The Texas-Sized Bigger Picture

Let’s call it what it is for a moment. The Houston Texans have been a mess for three seasons now. They are still trying to clean up from the Bill O’Brien era that moves such as the infamous DeAndre Hopkins trade. But then there’s the Deshaun Watson saga- between Watson being unhappy in Houston and then the sexual misconduct allegations following after. And now their third straight year looking for a new head coach.

The “glass cliff” is known as a phenomenon where corporations turn to women and minorities for leadership roles during a downturn, where failure is a greater chance. There has been no bigger example in the NFL of this than the Houston Texans. David Culley and Lovie Smith, two African American coaches, were essentially scapegoated. Not to say that they were great coaches, but they were not allowed to build much of a culture due to them only being there for a year each.

It has now gotten to where some coaching prospects are not pursuing Houston. For instance, DeMeco Ryans, San Francisco’s defensive coordinator, is not expected to pursue the opening over other opportunities. To add insult to injury, Ryans is a former linebacker for the Texans. KPRC’s Aaron Wilson mentions Ryans filing a lawsuit in 2014 against the team after suffering a torn Achilles in Houston, so it certainly does not help matters. But with the resume that the Houston Texans have put forth to the NFL in recent years, it may not be the desirable position of the vacancies, even with the #2 overall pick.