As far as Bush for DC, nothing is clear here. I am guessing that for whatever reason, Smithiak had some severe angst on the decision to let Richard Smith go. Perhaps they did de facto let Smith go early, tell noone, and let Bush handle the game planning and playcalling duties for the last half of the season. Not Likely. Perhaps they wanted to give Richard Smith every possible chance to prove he was worthy of another season. Not very likely after the lifeless D performance for the first 10 games. Perhaps they have yet to come to a decision to promote Bush, and have yet to start the interviewing process. Not Likely.

Lance Z speculated in his blog about the hiring of Gibbs Jr and promoting Bush weeks ago, so it will be no surprise if this is the way it works out. What is bad is that the Texans have not even made a superficial show by parading in the obligatory 3-5 “candidates” as part of their “exhaustively thorough” search for the best possible candidate to take the defense to the next level. Without doing this, they do not answer Tim’s question of why in the hell did you wait so long to promote Bush. It doesn’t speak well to the decision making process of hiring/firing coaches; a critical aspect of any franchise. Teams that make quality hires are in a continual state of flux, because good coaches keep moving up the ladder, either internally or externally. The knowhow to make quality coaching hires in a timely fashion is as critical to the success of an NFL team as is managing the cap, drafting collegians and signing free agents. Having fired 5 coaches and replaced none to date, the Texans management team is highly suspect right now.

Our DB situation is so bad – I want someone in there who can get some effing RESULTS. I want Alex back just as much as the next guy – but let’s not forget how abhorrent our secondary play has been.

The Broncos running game didn’t really suffer when Gibbs left, because the people left over knew what they were doing and they continued to do it well… that said, I’d love to have more than just one season with Alex… just as much for his coaching as for his player/personnel input.

I think it’s a moot point though – D Gibbs looks like a legit candidate and I don’t think it’s a case of nepotism at all – but it is worth at least bringing up.

you don’t want him! Trust me…

so I might as well gripe here. Your last question is what really chaps the ol’ pigskin. If Bush was going to be the guy why not give him a shot for half the season to see if he has the chops. Then again, maybe he did have more to do with the playcalling when the defense went from historically putrid to below average. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

but maybe I was right about there being a mystery candidate out there. It’s a good point, and I’m completely with you that interviewing/possibly hiring young Gibbs is worth keeping old/wise Gibbs, and that’s probably what they’re doing.

If Bush was a shoe-in for promotion, they would have announced it by now and let him be a huge part of the assistant coach hiring process. Like I said, maybe I’m just hoping for this, but maybe their trying to entice an outsider with not only our good/young personnel, but the fact that you can hire your own D Line coach, your own secondary coach, and have a good amount of input of strength and conditioning matters. The interviewing of young Gibbs doesn’t fit this mold but if I’m right in my theory, maybe the Smithiak decided it was a necessary evil to placate Alex.

I love the Texans, but I feel that I have the ability to be unbiased when it comes to evaluation of the team. Having said that though, if I was a name on the rise about to pick a team to start my first D Coordinator job, I would honestly think long and hard about going with the Texans. As long as we resign Dunta. each part of the D has at least one young/excellent player to anchor that part of the field. Hopefully, the lack of replacement interviews are just an attempt to sweeten the pot for someone beyond the personnel bennefits.

If I’m wrong and they eventually promote Bush w/o interviewing someone else, I’ll be really dissapointed in the lack of strategy in the hiring process. If I am right about my theory, and they court someone like McDermott but don’t land him and promote Bush anyway, I’ll be happy just knowing that they played it the right way and they tried.