Texans obsession with the “Patriot Way” set the franchise back 10 years
In the midst of recovery from the Matt Schaub and Gary Kubiak era, Texans owner Bob McNair was seemingly so disappointed with the direction of the franchise at the time that he literally pulled the plug on trying to establish an identity of his own for the Texans.
Instead he decided to shamelessly copy and paste the organizational makeup of the New England Patriots. Although the Patriots did win last year’s Superbowl, what exactly is it about their franchise that McNair saw which motivated him to attempt to duplicate it?
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Success in the Patriots relatively speaking has been all achieved under the Tom Brady era. Let me repeat that, the Patriots have accomplished everything that they own during the Tom Brady era.
If you are going to attempt to copy the New England Patriots, then you literally have to find another Tom Brady. Logic should lead one to believe that the Patriots didn’t throw a hall of fame caliber quarterback in the garbage when they cut Brian Hoyer and traded Ryan Mallett for a 7th round draft pick.
Secondly, in an attempt to duplicate the Patriots, you need to have a Hall of Fame caliber coach with equivalent personnel management and play calling skills as Bill Belichick.
The Belichick coaching tree, however has not produced much fruit. Take a look at these guys careers as coaches and let me know which one reminds you of Belichick (click on their names to see their coaching records): Nick Saban Eric Mangini Josh McDaniels Ray Handley Jim Fassel Bobby Petrino Al Groh Romeo Crennel Tony Sparano Todd Haley Charlie Weis Bill O’Brien
Apparently great Patriots quarterbacks don’t grow on trees and neither does successful coaches.
Here’s the bottom line: The Patriots got lucky with Tom Brady. They nor none of us had any idea that he would develop into arguably one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. His emergence into an all time great is still a head scratcher.
He was an inconsistent player at Michigan who was probably better suited to be Drew Henson’s chauffer than compete with him for the quarterback position.
He came into the NFL combine with a physique that is on par with Jake the State Farm guy. No one knew that Brady was going to be great – so how exactly did Bob McNair expect to duplicate that?
The Patriots also rolled the dice with a struggling Belichick who prior to arriving in BeanTown was a journeyman coordinator and “spare tire” head coach for the Jets, Browns and Giants.
Is this really the model that Bob McNair tried to duplicate? Unfortunately the answer to that is yes. Now that we clearly know that this is not how a franchise should be built, perhaps the “Patriot Games” in the Texans front office must come to an end sooner rather than later.
Stop digging in New England’s dumpster for players and coaches. If Belichick, who is the master of recycling players throws them in the trash, then there simply isn’t anything left to do with them.