I think most of us are a bit deflated, if only because this time of year necessarily makes guys like McDermott awfully enticing. As a professional football coach, Bush has to know that the policies and philosophy of Richard Smith didn’t work. It’s time for a change, and I’m betting that Bush won’t be Smith II.

If Bush is simply a repackaged Richard Smith, he (and the majority of the coaching staff, including Kubes) won’t be here long.

Though I’m a tad skeptical that Jerry Gray was really a candidate, given the fact that the ’Skins could block him from interviewing from anything but a head coaching position. To that point, Philly could have blocked McDermott as well.

I’ll agree that we have no evidence to show that Bush shares Richard Smith’s views. Bush could absolutely be the kind of fiery, blitz, make-the-offense-adjust-to-us-instead-of-the-other-way-around DC that we’ve been praying for.

My beef, really, isn’t with Bush; it’s with the process. If Bush was the guy, why not cut ties with Smith last season, when the Texans were out of the playoff hunt and Smith clearly was not the answer? Wouldn’t that kind of on-the-job audition have answered a lot of the doubts?

But realistically, how many of them were going to come to Houston? It reminds me of our draft wish lists: Taylor Mays, Brian Orakpo, or last year DRC. They would be great fits for the Texans (I mean, who would’t love to have DRC in our secondary, assuming Richard Smith would have let him on the field, lol), but they probably weren’t realistic (I know Mays isn’t coming out, but I sincerely doubt he would have been available had he come out). As bfd noted on his blog, pretty much the only person on the wishlist still available was McDermott, who is in the middle of a playoff run.

Bush may not be the next incarnation of Buddy Ryan, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t bring a significant improvement to the Texans D. The way I look at it, this past season we had an average D talent-wise, and were well below average when it came to the play on the field. If we’d had merely an average defense, we would likely have been in the playoff hunt.

We don’t know a lot about Bush’s attitude towards defense, but apparently the players love him (so Dickie Justice must approve) and I sincerely doubt that he could be any worse than Richie Smith.

In short, he may not be the best DC in the world, but he will likely be an upgrade and he’s probably the best we could do given the circumstances.

I expect our D to improve, even if they don’t rise to the level of the Ravens or Steelers.

And I agree that if this doesn’t work out, Kubes is on thin ice.

D’oh!

Mays and McCoy are ranked 6th and 8th respectively on the Scouts Inc top 32. That really hurts our chances of getting an immediate impact guy at either D line or Safety with the 15th pick.

I saw that too, and I feel a little bit better about the decision to hire Bush. But still only a little bit, because in reality, Kubiak should have fired Smith early this season (eh hem, or before it started) and handed the reigns to Bush.

Richard Smith was also alleged to be an aggressive, attacking DC.

Then again – you could see Bush keeping himself from throwing Smith under the bus when he was asked why the defense finished in the 20s the last few years.