Texans Fire GM Brian Gaine

June 07, 2019, 5:38 pm ET

Friday news dump! The Houston Texans announced they have fired general manager Brian Gaine.

Gaine was hired in January 2018, replacing GM Rick Smith, in what was seen as a win in a power struggle by head coach Bill O'Brien. One division championship and 17 months later, he is out. Nobody is quite sure why. Before hiring Gaine, the Texans attempted to interview Eagles exec Joe Douglas, a candidate for the open New York Jets general manager position, but were blocked. Maybe that's part of it? Maybe letting the Eagles snipe them for Andre Dillard in the first round?

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Comments

14 comments, Last at 16 Jun 2019, 11:34am

#1 by mathesond // Jun 07, 2019 - 9:28pm

And now Douglas is the new Jets GM.

#3 by justanothersteve // Jun 08, 2019 - 3:40pm

Once the Texans entered the picture, the Jets upped their offer to Douglas. They doubled their initial offer from $1.5 million to $3 million/year to prompt him to sign.

#5 by Led // Jun 08, 2019 - 9:55pm

The Jets did up their offer a few times over the course of the negotiation, but I have read that the deal was done before the Texans fired Gaines.

#2 by Stendhal1 // Jun 08, 2019 - 12:39pm

What? Why? With some semblance of rational planning having arrived in Cleveland, are the Texans aspiring to fill the open Browns continually reshuffle the deck slot? Surely Mr. Gaines had not now already shown he was not up to the job.

#8 by herewegobrowni… // Jun 12, 2019 - 8:08am

Ironically, in satisfying the Rooney interview they had...Ray Farmer, who brought us Johnny Football, Justin Gilbert at the 8th pick and Cam Erving in the 1st round...

#4 by Salur // Jun 08, 2019 - 9:31pm

I have no idea if this is the case, but (without explicitly saying it anywhere) the short article on Sports Illustrated seems to strongly imply that it was a Bill O'Brien power struggle (again, I guess?).

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/06/07/houston-texans-fire-gm-brian-gaine

#6 by Stendhal1 // Jun 09, 2019 - 2:51am

So to continue the Next Browns metaphor, Bill O'Brien is the new Hue Jackson.

#7 by billprudden // Jun 10, 2019 - 7:26am

Which of those two is worse at evaluating QBs?

#9 by Mr Shush // Jun 13, 2019 - 9:02am

There is a suggestion that this relates to a lawsuit against the Texans by a former employee who alleges that Gaine fired him for racially discriminatory reasons. The Texans deny this, but it's at least plausible based on timings.

Also noteworthy: Jack Easterby, the Texans' new éminence grise, is alleged to have approached Nick Caserio about the position at the Patriots' ring ceremony the day before Gaine was fired. So perhaps they (Cal McNair? O'Brien? Easterby?) simply concluded that an upgrade was available and they wanted to take it.

#10 by Noahrk // Jun 15, 2019 - 12:19am

PFT makes an interesting case that the lawsuit had nothing to do with it, as an employee would defend the team better than a former employee -but it seems plausible, yes.

As for the Caserio angle, if that's what they planned, they got seriously screwed by Mr. Caserio. There's no way he wouldn't know his contract forbade him from interviewing with other teams. Makes you wonder what his game was. Probably used the Texans to raise his stock or something. Not very classy.