How Will Texans Explain If (When) Coach Brian Flores Isn't Hired?
How will the Houston Texans explain it when picking through its three finalists for their head coaching opening - former Dolphins coach Brian Flores, Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and Josh McCown - leave Flores finishing out of it?
We’re not much on “premature predictions,” but we’ll bet it this way: Entering the weekend, we believed the job would go to McCown or Gannon. Gannon is now not in play, sources tell TexansDaily.com.
So McCown is the likely winner.
At which point, the Texans will have some explaining to do.
Flores is obviously a completely qualified candidate. His racism-hinged lawsuit, which is against the NFL but also puts the Texans on blast doesn’t change that.
But would a team being sued by Flores (and the suit against the NFL is actually against all 32 teams) really hire Flores?
There are three angles here:
One, the best way to answer the lawsuit is for a team to hire Flores. It wouldn’t “disprove” his claim, but it would “acknowledge” it.
Additionally, the Texans’ reputation among players who might agree with Flores about the franchise’s alleged mishandling of the hiring and firing of David Culley would be calmed. (More on that below.)
Hiring Flores would give Houston a maybe-superior (on-paper) coach.
Hiring Flores would give the NFL a clearly superior PR stroke.
Two, Flores - even before the lawsuit’s inflammatory allegations - is considered somebody who “doesn’t play well with others.” Maybe GM Nick Caserio knows that better than anybody, given their shared Patriots background.
In that sense, he might only be the best fit if he’s “the decider” in an organization.
And that’s not happening here in Houston.
Three, Flores devotes a full section of his 52-page lawsuit to the Texans and their treatment of Culley. It can be argued that Flores’ lawsuit might be even more powerful had he focused on his substantial life experience in the NFL rather than branching out by writing, “The Texans fired Mr. Culley without explanation other than vague ‘philosophical differences’” - suggesting racist motives.
Brad Kellner
The Texans’ hiring of Brian Flores would require Caserio to overlook these charges. If you ran a company, would you hire your company’s harshest critic to come and run your company?
Pick the Texans’ reason. We should be prepared for if/when Brian Flores finishes out of this race.
And the Houston Texans should be prepared to explain why.
