Texans owner Bob McNair apparently isn’t looking for the next Chip Kelly.
McNair said after firing head coach Gary Kubiak that his successor will be someone who has experience in the NFL. That would rule out hiring someone like Kelly, who jumped from Oregon to the Eagles last year having no NFL experience at all.
“We would like someone who has had head coaching experience, but has also had NFL experience,” McNair said. “It’s a combination of those two things would be the ideal situation and there are people who meet those conditions.”
Art Briles of Baylor and Kevin Sumlin of Texas A&M have both been mentioned as coaches who might interest McNair, but the fact that neither of them has any NFL experience (not to mention that both of them signed contract extensions last month) would seem to rule them out for the Texans job. McNair also indicated that he’s looking for someone with prior head-coaching experience, not an experienced assistant coach (which is what Kubiak was when McNair hired him).
“Well, experience shows that those people who were selected to be a head coach in the NFL, met with more success if they had had head-coaching experience,” McNair said. “And if you take someone who has been a coordinator, you’re basically moving them from a lower level of management, let’s say, to a higher level of management that they’ve never been in before. So, there’s a question mark as to whether they can elevate their performance to be able to handle those additional responsibilities, and some people can’t.”
Some candidates who fit McNair’s criteria include Lovie Smith, Jack Del Rio, Jon Gruden, Ken Whisenhunt and the Texans’ current interim head coach, Wade Phillips.