Despite reports that the Texans had narrowed their list of candidates down to journeyman quarterback Josh McCown and former Dolphins’ head coach Brian Flores, Adam Schefter of ESPN has reported that current defensive coordinator and associate head coach Lovie Smith is now in talks with Houston about potentially becoming their next head coach. Smith interviewed with the team earlier tonight, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. This is the second time Smith has been considered for the Texans’ head coach position, the first time being when he interviewed with the team in December 2013 prior to accepting the head coaching job in Tampa Bay. 
Smith has spent 16 of the last 18 years as a head coach at some level. After three years of coaching at the high school level, Smith spent the next 13 years bouncing around the NCAA as a position coach with stops at Tulsa, Wisconsin, Arizona State, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio State. He accepted a job as the Buccaneers’ linebackers coach in 1996 and, after five seasons in Tampa Bay, was hired as the defensive coordinator of the Rams. Smith took the St. Louis defense from a league-worst 29.4 points per game to seventh in the league allowing 17.1 points per game in his first year leading the defense.
Smith soon earned the head coaching job for the Bears in 2004. Despite losing starting quarterback Rex Grossman to injury for most of the 2005 season, the Bears would get a first round bye in the playoffs as the NFC’s number two-seed in Lovie’s second year as head coach, winning Smith the AP NFL Coach of the Year Award. In 2006, the Bears were the NFC’s number one-seed, owning the NFL’s second-ranked scoring offense and fifth-ranked overall defense. In his third season as an NFL head coach, Smith became the first Black head coach to lead his team to a Super Bowl, and the second minority head coach after Tom Flores.
The next six years saw the Bears miss the playoffs five times despite only two losing seasons and never finishing with a record worse than 7-9. Smith was fired after failing to reach the playoffs in the 2012 season despite finishing with a record of 10-6, the last winning season the Bears would see until 2018.
After a year hiatus from the NFL, Smith was brought in to replace Greg Schiano in Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers went 2-14 and 6-10 in Smith’s first two seasons and Smith was fired with three years remaining on his contract.
After Tampa Bay, Smith accepted the job of head coach at the University of Illinois. A perennial basement-dweller in the Big Ten, Smith amassed a 17-39 record in five seasons at Illinois. In 2019, he did lead the Fighting Illini to their first bowl game appearance since 2014, but was fired the next year after starting the season 2-5.
Following his stint in college football, Smith was hired by Houston in March of 2021 in his current role under rookie head coach David Culley, returning to the NFL after a 5 year hiatus. Smith did improve the Texans’ defense from ranking 30th in defensive DVOA in 2020 to 23rd in 2021, but Houston was not one of the league’s better defensive units.
Schefter reported that Smith was always included in the Texans’ discussions, but his candidacy for head coach didn’t start gaining momentum until very recently. The consensus in the media is that, along with this revived interest in Smith, McCown is no longer being considered for the position, as Schefter, Rapoport, and NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero have all tweeted as much.
It looks, for now, as if Brian Flores and Lovie Smith are the two candidates the Texans are focusing on for the position moving forward, unless any more surprise candidates find their way into contention. Be sure to follow our 2022 NFL Head Coaching Search Tracker to keep up with updates to the remaining open positions.
They had yall fooled. Patriots South is hush hush about their deals. They probably had Lovie atop their list all along and McCown as coordinator/associate head coach. It would only make sense.
If only there were options in between old guy who’s washed out of the NFL head coaching circuit after multiple jobs and young guy who’s literally never coached above the high school level.
Tomorrow we’ll hear that they’re also in serious discussions with Jimmy Johnson, Mike Ditka, and Marv Levy.
Had to look up whether or not Levy was still kicking. Low and behold he’s still plugging along at 96. Pretty sure having to coach that roster would push him into the afterlife though.
All of them would be better options than Josh McCown.
Why would they do that?
Looks like this would’ve been Brian Flores job had he not sued the league. Now It’s Lovie’s! Great name Lovie Smith. I’ll be rooting for ole Lovie!
exactly he’s too toxic now
Still can’t believe they would hire anyone other than Flores after getting rid of Culley, who did an admiral job with a subpar roster. It seemed that Culley’s firing was only because Flores became available. I guess we’ll only know when we know.
I think that they planned to get rid of Culley after a year all along, but Culley did a much better job than expected. Flores may have have been the plan, or more likely McDaniels, but both are now unavailable suddenly-for different reasons.
They could do worse than Lovie.
Josh McCown must have a lot of pheromones…..
Here’s what happened:
Goodell:Cal, are you seriously considering hiring a white HC with no coaching experience after this Flores lawsuit?
Cal: huh? We are hiring a HC? What happened to BOB?
Goodell: Nevermind! Look, the NFL has an image to protect. We can’t allow you to hire McCown. He has no coaching experience, and he’s white. Work with us Cal!
Cal: I mean, Easterby said something about talking to McCown. I thought it was just for a signed jersey for my collection. Should I call him?
Goodell: (sigh) Look, if Easterby wants to hire McCown, we can’t legally stop you. But what we need you to do is hire Lovie.
Cal: OH! I love Lovie! See what I did there?
Goodell: (sigh) yes, very clever. Hire Lovie, and give him 3 years. Then if you want to hire McCown that’s fine. Deal?
Cal: Yeah, sounds good. Oh! Would you like some ribs? I love BBQ!!
Goodell: Goodbye Cal. I’m hanging up now.
Cal: It’s a good day to be a Texan!
You’re trying way too hard
This tells me they were really about to hire McClown until the lawsuit, then got shook. And the McDaniel hiring didn’t help either.
Or maybe Flores was their guy. But I doubt that, because they would have pulled that trigger a long time ago.
So now, rather than backtrack, they are trying to save face with the only decision that looks somewhat rationale, and going in house for an option.
Thing is, it may work out, because Lovie is a solid coach who had that awful defense look respectable, and he will probably be able to fill a staff with quality albeit older coaches like Caldwell, Hamilton and and Juan Castillo on offense, while keeping the defensive staff in place. He’s also good friends with Marinelli and Bissachia.
Sometimes dumb works out.
I think they actually did want Flores before the lawsuit, but otherwise I agree with what you said.
Hiring Flores is a ticket to being included in his next lawsuit.
My first reaction was also along the lines of “hey, this is a “clever” way to not hire Brian Flores” but actually a coach like Lovie (veteran who has had some success and been around the league forever) is probably exactly what the Texans need.
Love is and has always been a defensive coordinator. He has never had an ounce of sense when it came to offense. Yet somehow he keeps getting head coaching jobs. Unless he stumbles onto someone who can make the most of the offense, which he has never done before, the Texans are treading water with this hire.
A) BB aside, most head coaches are only good on one side of the ball and have to hire someone good for the other side.
B) “Treading water” is a solid upgrade from “sinking like a stone.”
Lovie Smith is a quality Head Coach, not a D coordinator.
Jerry Angelo did him no favors as GM. He could not draft for offense to save his life. That’s not on Lovie.
But Smith is respected by all players, and managed to put together solid competitive teams with the likes of Rex Grossman and Jay Cutler at QB.
He was never given a shot in Tampa.
If they commit to him, I have no doubt Lovie will turn everything around in a year or two.
“McClown”? what has the dude done to earn your ire?
First Culley and now Smith. I didn’t know that the Texans apparently made having an AARP card a prerequisite for the head coaching gig.
Why not, we do for president.
A Lovie Smith hire is probably the only way I could be convinced to invest time watching the Texas train wreck.
If they get Lovie, do they also get Thurston the 3d?
Perhaps they ought to hold a fan contest to pick the new HC. It can’t be any worse than what they are doing.
At this point do they have enough fans to have that contest? There are a few teams whose fans I respect just for putting up with seemingly endless garbage product, and the Texans are trending towards being one of those teams.
Theirs other former Coaches out their to.
Why not go with McCown? Seriously. Let the OC do what OCs do. Let the DC do what DCs do. Let the Head Coach oversee everything be of a support to the staff & players.
Texans have interviewed McCown for a second year in a row. Just do it. (Note: I’d rather hire Flores)
Flores is suing every NFL team. All 32 of them. He isn’t getting another NFL job – ever.
I dunno – Flores has been connected to the Texans job for a while now. He still has a chance here – but Lovie Smith appears to be the frontrunner here. I wouldn’t mind seeing him get the job. He’s a tough, gritty coach with lots of experience. He knows defense. I could see him being the HC for a while, even with his age. Either one would be a great hire.
Lovie is done as a head coach. Couldn’t do it anymore in Tampa. And when you get fired from Illinois. Come on !
1) After everything that has come out about the process, and the way they handled Culley, good luck with building a strong locker room culture with a guy that has never coached, and was hired because he has a buddy in the front office.
2) Good luck building a staff. Pretty much anyone hired will have more experience, including the quality control coaches. There are some who wouldn’t want to take the job on principle, and others who would not want to deal with the Texan clown show and it’s novelty head coach.
And when things hit the fan, will those coaches even respect him? It came out this week that Steve Wilks failed because players and coaches would gossip amongst themselves about issues, because he had a bunch of coaches forced on him from Arians staff. You don’t think same would happen here? When he says something utterly clueless in a meeting?
I doubt McCown can create the type of culture required for success, let alone handle the X’s and O’s, especially with the third tier staff he would likely assemble.
So hire the unqualified job because it’s secretly not a real job?
The NFL is quickly becoming an embarrassment. This hiring of Smith is the owners way of saying we will just hire this black coach for a token year. Let him get his butt handed to him and no one can complain firing him for going 1-16. Flores is way more qualified than Lovie at this stage. What is going on with these owners?
NFL needs to clean house with a bunch of owners who are terrible for the league.
Miami
Houston
Jax
Cleveland
Washington
Am I missing anyone?