The only alignment needed is with O'Brien's demands, and ego
Brian Gaine isn't the only person Bill O'Brien is running out of town
Jun 8, 2019, 4:25 pm
Cody Stoots/SportsMap
It was a usual, uneventful early June Friday when the news broke about 4:15pm that the Texans had fired General Manager Brian Gaine just a year and a half into a 5 year deal that the team told us at the time would usher in an era of alignment between coach and GM.
In fact, these were the very words of the late Bob McNair, "Our committee was unanimous in praise for Brian Gaine and we are all aligned in our philosophy on how to continue to build our roster and win a championship. Brian is an incredibly smart, hardworking individual that understands the importance of good communication. We couldn't be more excited about naming him our new general manager."
Gaine and O'Brien had a history of working well together when Gaine was running player personnel for the Texans from 2014-16, and O'Brien stumped for his friend to get the job. Gaine was O'Brien's guy, and together they would build the Texans into the log desired Super Bowl Champion the team and city wants.
That was January 2018.
Fast forward 18 months and D. Cal McNair, now Chairman & CEO of the team, has a different story to tell. While the statement reads of saying nice things about Brian Gaine ("man of high character") there is no denying the obvious in this situation.
Bill O'Brien fired Brian Gaine.
Cal can release the statement and take the hits for what is, as he admitted, highly unusual timing, but the bottom line is Bill O'Brien is the straw that stirs the drink with the Texans, and he and his buddy Gaine were no longer buddies.
There have been reports of "erosion" in the relationship between O'Brien and Gaine, how they weren't seeing eye-to-eye, and how this was the manifestation of many events over a period of time and not one particular flashpoint that happened just Friday.
The relationship between the former friends had definitely soured, and the team was willing to eat 3.5 years of contract to appease O'Brien's ego in the matter.
One of the points of contention, according to sources, is the team's inability to land a significant free agent on the offensive line. O'Brien is said to have really liked former Patriots OT Trent Brown, but the team failed to acquire his services. It comes a year after the team failed to sign another former Patriots OT, Nate Solder, who decided he did not want to reunite with O'Brien despite far lower taxes in Texas than in NYC/North Jersey and world class cancer hospitals for his son right down the road from NRG Stadium.
While one move alone wouldn't damn a team to being a raging dumpster fire of an organization, some still look at the Texans odd firing of Gaine and compare it to the New York Jets firing their GM. The Jets have long been a franchise run like a rudderless ship, and the comparisons to the Jets came in fast and furious. It's not fair to call the Texans the same as the Jets based on one move.
However, if we peel the onion back a bit, we may see things are closer to the jets than you may have thought.
Start with the purging of all their top scouts.
You remember, right after the draft last year, the Texans fired assistant GM Jimmy Raye III (the man hired to replace Gaine when he was fired by Rick Smith). They also fired their director of college scouting Jon Carr, assistant director of college scouting Mike Martin (the man credited with finding Arian Foster & AJ Bouye), college scouting director Matt Jansen, and college scout Seth Turner. Carr and Martin had been with the team over a decade. The Texans trusted them to run the draft and then fired them.
After the draft this year, they fired Frantzy Jourdain, who had been a national scout for the team after serving as a Southeast area scout.
So the team fired a bunch of top scouts, and then fired the GM. That doesn't sound like a recipe for success, does it? Maybe the comparisons to the Jets have merit after all.
Let's make matters worse, shall we?
There have been several sources that have indicated to me that many players on the team do not like Bill O'Brien. Two sources even used the term "hate."
That's when this little nugget got dropped on me:
"Bill O'Brien is running Clowney out of town."
At the end of March, O'Brien said "I really have a great fondness for Jadeveon Clowney," at the Annual League Meeting in Phoenix. However, that may not be the real case.
According to several sources, O'Brien is not a fan of Clowney's approach to the game, and feels that Clowney didn't work hard enough last season in returning from surgery. I guess we know for sure where the comments about Clowney not being "the worker bee" some of his defensive teammates (JJ Watt) are came from.
You may also recall the comments from O'Brien in Clowney's rookie season on how JD needed to learn to play with pain, and the team questioned his desire to play in regards to a knee injury he suffered Week 1. He then returned to the team only to make the knee injury significantly worse, and need microfracture surgery. Clowney then returned to the field the following year from microfracture surgery faster than any player in the history of the league. Maybe the accounting of his lack of work ethic is overstated?
The disdain that O'Brien has for Clowney has apparently been simmering for years, and Clowney is wise to it. As a result, Clowney will not give the Texans the contractual discount they are asking of him. He wants to get paid full market rate, and O'Brien isn't happy about it.
It's also why the Texans shopped Clowney this offseason. Sources said if the Texans could have gotten a "Khalil Mack type of deal" for Clowney, they would have pulled the trigger in a heartbeat.
Instead, Clowney waits on the franchise tag without real negotiations going on (the intended point of the franchise tag was to foster ongoing negotiations, not be a tool that forces one year deals) and is holding out as a result.
All of that leaves Houston with a team without a true General Manager, a Head Coach in charge who allegedly isn't liked by many players, a void in scouting, a top player being left to twist in the wind contractually, and an offensive line that is in flux, at best.
One of the biggest failures of O'Brien's tenure is that he hasn't developed any young offensive linemen. The team is now trusting him to develop a bunch of young offensive linemen, they don't have a highly productive veteran on the line, and they don't have a real GM anymore to handle potentially trading for one (Trent Williams).
JJ Watt's Hall of Fame career is about to enter his ninth season at age 30, with two major injuries in his recent past, DeAndre Hopkins is entering his seventh season firmly established as one of the elite WRs in the game, and we are looking at a team that could be wasting both of their careers.
Deshaun Watson was sacked a league high 62 times last season (that's the fifth highest total ALL TIME) and we have no idea if the line will be any better this season.
There are a ton of things we don't know about the Texans heading into this year, but one huge thing we do know:
Bill O'Brien, who is four games over .500 in his five years in Houston and has one playoff win (against a team that was forced to start its third string rookie QB due to injuries), the same man who threatened to leave the team seemingly every year to try to win a power struggle with former GM Rick Smith, is going to hire another GM because Cal McNair has deemed Bill O'Brien the man in charge, for better or for worse.
Forgive me if all the indicators seem to say worse.
Patrick Creighton is the host of "Late Hits" weeknights 7-9p on ESPN 97.5 Houston. Follow him on Twitter: @PCreighton1
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
There's no denying that this year's World Series champs (LA Dodgers) have some serious firepower on their roster. And one of the ways they were able to assemble such a talented team involved players like Shohei Ohtani being willing to differ their money.
Just this week, there was some speculation that the Yankees could do something similar when restructuring Gerrit Cole's contract, that would allow them more flexibility in the present.
The Yankees ended up calling Cole's bluff about opting out, and no adjustment was made to the contract.
But this situation got us thinking, would the Astros consider a tactic like this to maximize the roster? At this point, it doesn't seem all that likely. Just last year, the team handed out a $95 million contract to Josh Hader, without any differed money.
The other factor that also has to come into play is the tax threshold. The organization would have to give the okay to go over it again in order to make a splash signing this offseason. Which unfortunately does not sound like the plan right now when listening to GM Dana Brown at the Winter Meetings.
Astros pitcher hires a new agent
Now that MLB free agency is in full swing, most of the attention moving forward will be focused on players like Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Juan Soto.
But for Astros fans, there might be someone else to keep an eye on this offseason and next. Starting pitcher Hunter Brown quietly hired super agent Scott Boras recently.
With Brown still another season away from his first year of arbitration, he should be with the Astros for the foreseeable future.
However, the hiring of Boras does raise some interesting questions. Why make the move now? Certainly, Brown could use some more cash, as he's set to make less than a million in 2025.
Perhaps Brown wants to land some HEB commercials to fatten his wallet. And if Bregman does leave the team in free agency, a spot will open up for another player, in theory. And three of the players in the HEB ads are represented by Boras (Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Bregman).
Jeremy Pena has been stacking cash from Taquerias Arandas for several years now, maybe Brown would like an opportunity to do an endorsement similar to that.
I say all this half kidding, but Brown does look like the future ace of this staff, and I'm sure there are plenty of advertisers that would have interest in Hunter.
There is another element that could have initiated the hiring of Boras. Would Brown be willing to sign an extension early with the Astros similar to the deal the team made with Cristian Javier?
Their situations are actually pretty comparable, except Javier was one year further into his career (3 years of MLB service time) and eligible for arbitration before agreeing to the extension.
If Brown was heading into arbitration this offseason, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the Astros to be considering a long-term deal with him that buys up all his arbitration years. The 'Stros love these types of contract extensions. We've seen them do it with Bregman, the aforementioned Javier, and others.
One of the main differences though between Brown and Javier is their rookie year numbers. Brown only pitched 20.1 innings in his first season (2022). While Javier pitched 54.1 innings his rookie year. However, his rookie season was in 2020, so Javier completed a full year of service time despite the shortened season. Whereas Brown didn't get called up until September 2022.
Another difference is performance. Javier never posted an ERA over 3.55 in his first three seasons. As opposed to Brown, who had a disastrous year in 2023. He made 29 starts, recording an ERA over 5.
It wasn't until May of 2024 that Brown started using his two-seam fastball with great success and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League.
The Astros had a bigger sample size to judge Javier. However, if Brown has another quality season in 2025, Houston and Brown should definitely be having conversations about an extension. Especially with Framber Valdez being in the final year of his contract in 2025. Hunter could be the unquestioned ace one year from now.
Still, though, there are some concerns with handing out these early extensions. For example, if the Astros had it to do over again, would they still extend Javier?
After receiving his extension before the 2023 season, he went on to post the highest ERA of his career (4.56), and then blew out his elbow in May 2024.
And if we're going by Luis Garcia's recovery timeline from Tommy John surgery, we may not see Javier pitch at all in 2025.
So even with a sample size of three terrific seasons, the Javier extension looks like a miss with the benefit of hindsight. It will be interesting to see if that deal impacts Dana Brown's decision-making going forward.
Especially since Javier was Dana's first big contract extension as the Astros GM.
Be sure to watch the video as we discuss how the Astros can get the most out of their roster, the pros and cons of signing Hunter Brown early, and much more!
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo discuss varied Astros topics. The post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon. Find all via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
_______________
Fans of Houston sports and Houston food can now score tickets to The Tailgate, CultureMap's all-out party devoted to everyone’s favorite way to get in the gameday spirit. The event, presented by Verizon, goes down from 6-9 pm November 11 at 8th Wonder. Tickets are $75 for VIP and $50 for General Admission. For a limited time, we’re giving you $10 off; use code SPORTSMAP at checkout. Get your tickets now!