Bill Belichick takes indirect shot at Texans while praising interim GM

The New England Patriots head coach took an indirect shot at his former character coach, who currently is the general manager of the Houston Texans.

The Houston Texans are an organization in disarray. Four games into the 2020 season, the Texans opted to fire head coach and general manager Bill O’Brien after going winless. While Romeo Crennel was promoted to interim head coach, the man who replaced O’Brien to lead the front office for this season at minimum was Jack Easterby, the former character coach of the New England Patriots.

Ahead of Week 11’s Patriots-Texans game, head coach Bill Belichick was asked about Easterby’s talents. While he did praise him for his work with the Patriots dating back to 2013, Belichick did say that Easterby is “not a personnel person.” Oof.

“Jack did a great job for us,” Belichick said, via Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle. “His role was a varied one. He worked with a lot of different aspects of the organization — players, coaches, support people, so forth. He was a person who could connect well with everybody, from the owner of the team to the equipment manager that picks up towels, and all of the people in between. So he was a very valuable person for this organization in the time he was here.”

Not exactly a glowing endorsement from Belichick

Texans fans were looking for some form of glowing praise from Belichick, as Easterby could potentially retain the general manager job for the 2021 season. Hearing this had to feel like a punch to the gut for the fanbase, as if they haven’t taken enough of those this past year.

Easterby was hired by the Texans in 2019 to be their executive vice president of football operations, and Texans fans have lumped him in with the moves made by O’Brien as general manager.

During his tenure, the Texans flipped edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney for essentially a 2020 third-round pick, acquired left tackle Laremy Tunsil from the Miami Dolphins for 2020 and 2021 first-round picks, and traded superstar wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to the Arizona Cardinals for running back David Johnson, a second-round pick and a fourth-round selection.

The Texans currently sit at 2-7 on the season and are all but out of the playoff race. They won’t have a first-round pick this year because of the aforementioned Tunsil trade, edge rusher J.J. Watt has expressed his desire to not be on a rebuilding team and the organization is leaning towards bringing Crennel back for the 2021 season. If the latter proves to be true, we can’t rule out Easterby returning for next year.

But it’s truly telling that the brightest mind in football doesn’t view Easterby as a personnel guy, but the Texans do.