Case Keenum Benched For Matt Schaub: Gary Kubiak Did It His Way

Yesterday, Gary Kubiak decided to pull Case Keenum in favor of Matt Schaub. I was at Reliant Stadium, so I had no idea why the move was made. I surmised that Case must have gotten hurt somehow, because benching Keenum for Schaub made absolutely no sense, on any level, no matter how much you've had to drink, otherwise. So was Keenum hurt? Nope. Kubiak explained the reasoning behind his decision in the postgame presser:

(on putting QB Matt Schaub in the game) "What was happening was, we had to make a lot of changes from a protection standpoint to handle some of the things they were doing. Trying to create some tempo and do that. And it made it very tough on (QB) Case (Keenum), in my opinion, being a young player. I knew that (QB) Matt (Schaub) could get done some of the things that I wanted to get done, real fast, and to give us a chance to win the football game. So that’s why I did it."

I see.

As I read it, what Kubiak said was that he thought Case Keenum could not process the changes to the game plan the team needed to make to the protection schemes. Why, pray tell, would that be? My initial reaction is that Kubiak was saying that Keenum, someone who plays the most challenging position in professional football (if not all of sports), is too dumb to be able to adjust.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. Perhaps instead of questioning Case's intelligence, Kubiak was talking about Keenum's lack of experience. Well, I don't buy that either. How is a change in protection something that doesn't come up during the week's preparations leading up to the game? How is this something that's not practiced? It's not like it was a shock to see the Raiders bring the house against Case. Every other team he's played has done the same thing. In the short book that is Case Keenum: Starting NFL Quarterback, the best way to defend him is pretty well known. How could the coaching staff so vigorously fail to prepare Keenum to make adjustments in response to how a team was virtually certain to attack him?

Kubiak's explanation is complete and total horse fecal matter. He didn't pull Case Keenum because he thought Keenum couldn't handle the changes to the offensive game plan. Kubiak pulled Keenum because Matt Schaub is Gary Kubiak's guy. Gary has decided that if he's doing down, he's going down on his terms.

Well, that's what I hope, anyway. The alternative is that Gary Kubiak actually believes that Matt Schaub under center gives this team the best chance to win football games. That's a position so bereft of logic, so chock full of delusion, that I choose to dismiss the notion that anyone who has watched the Texans this season, much less the freaking head coach, could possibly embrace it. I prefer to think Gary Kubiak's hubris, not his complete and total lack of understanding of how broken Matt Schaub is and how broken this team is, was the driving force behind the decision to go with Matt Schaub over Case Keenum.

Gary Kubiak is a desperate man. He has to know his job is on the line. Or was on the line, anyway. Because Gary Kubiak had his Waterloo at Reliant Stadium yesterday, and there's no coming back from it. I only hope that Kubes had this song running through his head when he decided to bench Case Keenum for Matt Schaub:

To paraphrase The Chairman Of The Board, the record will show that Gary Kubiak took the blows. Gary Kubiak did it his way. Texans fans have had our fill, our share of losing. Enough is enough. Whether it's today or immediately after Week 17 of the 2013 season is in the books, Gary Kubiak is done as head coach of the Houston Texans. Alea iacta est.

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