The biggest news of the day in the NFL was that the Houston Texans decided to fire the longest tenured head coach in franchise history, Gary Kubiak, after an 11-game losing streak this season. Last night’s devastating loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars was apparently the last straw for Texans ownership but the question of where to move next is going to dominate the rest of the team’s season.
Being the first team to axe a coach this season, Houston is by default going to be the first team mentioned with all the typical head coaching chatter. ESPN seems to be beating everyone to the punch and is reporting their own Jon Gruden as a possible successor to Gary Kubiak. Now before you start getting all hot and bothered over the idea of Gruden coming to Houston, the report wasn’t an actual sourced report, rather a list that ESPN NFL insider John Clayton threw together and reported.
ProFootballTalk’s Michael David Smith captured the on-screen graphic and posted it on Twitter.
This is hardly a concrete report to run with as the Texans likely won’t be meeting with coaches until after their miserable season is done. But Gruden’s name always comes up in these conversations and he so far hasn’t ran with any. From the Raiders job to the Tennessee Volunteers job last year and the slew of coaching gigs that will come up this year, Gruden doesn’t seem like he’s going to leave ESPN.
Houston’s an interesting option though as they could draft a top quarterback for Gruden to mold, have a great defense like the one he won a Super Bowl with in Tampa Bay in 2002 and have a young team ready to become a dynasty under his leadership.
But hey, if he passes I guess there’s always Tom Cable.