A day after one of the most disappointing losses in franchise history, Texans coach Gary Kubiak was able to focus during his press conference on something other than the team’s performance.
Unfortunately.
Kubiak addressed the decision of cornerback Dunta Robinson to place the message “Pay me, Rick” on his shoes. Robinson was then laughing about the maneuver in the locker room, following the 24-7 loss to the Jets.
“I found out after the game,” Kubiak said of the Robinson’s actions, in comments distributed by the team. “I obviously didn’t know anything about it. I’m disappointed but it’s been dealt with as a football team and it’s been dealt with as an organization so we’ll move on from there.”
Asked whether Robinson would be fined by the team, Kubiak said, “No, it’s been dealt with between me and [G.M.] Rick [Smith] and Dunta and we’re moving on.”
The decision to give Robinson a pass is no surprise, since Kubiak needs to find a way to get the most out of Robinson and the rest of the Texans players, because Kubiak’s seat got a lot hotter with a 17-point home loss to a rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback in their first NFL games.
But Robinson most likely will be fined by the league, since the placement of personal messages represents a clear violation of the uniform policy.
Robinson also talked about the situation on Monday, saying that he won’t do it again.
“It was all fun and games,” Robinson said. “I don’t think Rick took it personal. It wasn’t meant to be personal. Originally, when I got them, that was like three months ago and me and Rick weren’t really seeing eye to eye. Now, it was just one of those situations where if I thought that it would bring some negativity in here, then I wouldn’t have put them on. Like I said, Rick didn’t take it personal at all and the guys laughed a lot. I guess it proved its point.”
Yeah, it proved its point. It proved that Robinson isn’t able to separate his desire to get paid from his desire to play, and that getting paid nearly $10 million this year isn’t enough to get him to set aside his desire to get paid.
As a result, the behavior could affect the willingness of anyone to pay him the kind of money he wants.