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So who is Romeo Crennel?

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Romeo Crennel: Defensive Coordinator for the Houston Texans.

Crennel signed a 3-year deal with the Texans on Monday, agreeing to become the team's new defensive coordinator. But who exactly is this guy?

In his playing years at Western Kentucky University, he played both defensive and offensive lineman and was a four-year starter defensively. However, he did not go on to play in the NFL.

Crennel's 44 year coaching career has given him quite an impressive (and lengthy) resume. First serving as a coach in the collegiate level, he spent a year as a graduate assistant and three years as the defensive line coach at Western Kentucky University. He then moved on to Texas Tech, where he spent another three seasons as the defensive coordinator/head coach's assistant. His college coaching career came to a close after two seasons as a defensive ends coach at Ole Miss and another season as the defensive line coach for Georgia Tech.

Crennel has also had a lot of experience in the NFL. He spent 10 seasons with the NY Giants, first as an assistant, then making the transition to being the special teams coach, then becoming the defensive line coach. Crennel then left the Giants to spend 4 seasons with the NE Patriots and 3 seasons with the NY Jets, continuing on both teams as a defensive line coach. As a defensive coordinator, he spent a year in Cleveland, four seasons with the Patriots, and also served as defensive coordinator for the KC Chiefs.

Crennel also has several years of head coaching experience in the NFL: he coached the Cleveland Browns for four seasons and then spent just one year as the head coach for the KC Chiefs.

Bill O'Brien and Crennel both have some experience working alongside Bill Belichick as a part of the New England Patriots organization (not at the same time). This indicates that they'll probably (hopefully) be on the same page as far as the defense goes. Crennel is expected to continue running the 3-4 defense that Wade Phillips has been using and familiarizing the players with for the past few years.

Although he has a terrible record as a head coach (28-55), he has a great reputation as being a fantastic defensive coordinator(and I really, really hope that's true).

Throughout his career, Crennel has earned 5 Super Bowl rings, and has been able to improve the defense of every team that he has joined as a defensive coordinator. Hopefully, he'll be able to fully utilize the talent that we already have and continue to develop and improve it.

So what do you think about the guy? Are you pumped about about Crennel? Or still a little mad that O'Brien got rid of Phillips?