If you’re looking for proof that the NFL is still king, look no further than the news of the Houston Texans firing their general manager, Brain Gaine. The unexpected move comes just 17 months into Gaine’s tenure as the leader of the team and dominated the Friday afternoon news cycle yesterday.
Gaine, who spent five seasons as a member of the Miami Dolphins front office, will now have to seek work outside of the traditional hiring cycle for NFL executives. Gaine started his time with the Dolphins as their assistant director of pro scouting and by the time he left for Houston in 2014, he had worked all the way up to the team’s assistant general manager.
Houston’s decision making process here was odd — but the decision to fire Gaine shouldn’t have been all that surprising when considering the team’s offensive line deficiency and inability to address it.
Gaine’s Texans entered the 2019 offseason with one of the most promising young quarterbacks in all of football, Deshaun Watson, suffering 62 sacks in 2018. As one of the league’s most salary cap rich programs and three picks in the top-55 of the 2019 NFL Draft, surely the Texans would address the issue with pro-ready players and solidify their standing to compete for the conference — right?
Wrong. Houston’s only free agent signing on the offensive line was tackle Matt Kalil for 1-year, $7.5M. For the record, Kalil is a terrible offensive tackle. And in the draft, Houston did draft two offensive linemen with their first three picks — but Gaine chose raw project Tytus Howard of Alabama State in the first round and another small school player in Max Scharping at 55 overall.
Seemingly for his sins, Gaine is now out of work. Considering Miami’s lineage of poor offensive line play, it feels somewhat poetic for this former Dolphins’ fate tied to the same crippling issue that has derailed the Dolphins for so many years.
