Lovie Smith fought until the bitter end to help the Houston Texans to a win in the finale of a dismal season, with his fate likely already sealed.
Hours later he was out of a job.
Smith was fired as coach of the Texans on Sunday night after just one season in which the team went 3-13-1.
It’s the second straight season in which the Texans have fired a coach after one year. They parted ways with David Culley last January after he went 4-13 in his only season.
“I’m constantly evaluating our football operation and believe this is the best decision for us at this time,” general manager Nick Caserio said in a statement announcing the team parting ways with Smith. “It is my responsibility to build a comprehensive and competitive program that can sustain success over a long period of time. We aren’t there right now, however, with the support of the (team owner) McNair family and the resources available to us, I’m confident in the direction of our football program moving forward.”
Smith was asked about his future after Sunday’s win at Indianapolis and seemed confident that he’d return next season.
“We understand the totality of the season,” he said. “Do I expect to be back? Yeah, I expect to be back, absolutely.”
The Texans had the league’s worst record for most of the season, but won two of their last three games, capped by Sunday’s win over the Colts that cost the team the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s draft. The 32-31 victory over Indianapolis gave Chicago the top pick and left Houston to choose second in April’s draft.
Davis Mills connected with Jordan Akins on a 28-yard touchdown pass with 50 seconds left Sunday against the Colts. Mills then found Akins again for the 2-point conversion to put the Texans on top for good.
Smith was asked about the win ruining Houston’s chance to get the top pick in the draft.
“So, you’re saying, hey, guys, playing this last game, all that you’ve been working for all your life, you play to win, forget that, lose the game on purpose,” Smith said. “I think that would be a hard one to get by. They wouldn’t expect me to say that. I didn’t. Each week our game plan to be to win the game. It’s kind of simple as that. That’s what we followed through on today.”
The 64-year-old Smith was one of the few Black coaches in the NFL along with Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, Tampa Bay’s Todd Bowles and Miami’s Mike McDaniel, who is biracial. The league requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coaching positions, but has long fallen short of its goal to increase the number of Black coaches in a league where the majority of players are Black.
Culley, who is also Black, spent more than 40 years as a college and NFL assistant before being hired to coach the Texans.
The Texans move to cut ties with two coaches – each after just one season -- was met with swift criticism. Both coaches were working with rosters devoid of any stars and lacking much established talent. They also had to contend with an inexperienced young quarterback in Mills with Deshaun Watson sitting out last season after requesting a trade before his sexual misconduct allegations surfaced and then being traded to Cleveland before this season.
Watch the live game of the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium.
LuxuryVIPSuites offer you a great deal on Houston Texans luxury boxes online.
Visit our website for more details or you can call us at (888) 842-0020.https://www.luxuryvipsuites.com/houston-texans-suites.html
JULY 27, 2020: Legal Services Global Market Opportunities And Strategies To 2023 report from The Business Research Company provides the strategists, marketers and senior management with the critical information they need to assess the legal services market.Description:Where is the largest and fastest growing market for the legal services?
How does the market relate to the overall economy, demography and other similar markets?
This chapter includes different products covered in the report and basic definitions.Supply Chain - The supply chain section of the report defines and explains the key players in the legal services industry supply chain.Product Analysis - The product analysis section of the report describes the leading products along with key features and differentiators for those products/services.Customer Information - This chapters covers recent customer and service providers’ trends/preferences in the global legal services market.Trends And Strategies - This chapter describes the major trends shaping the global legal services market.
This section highlights likely future developments in the market and suggests approaches companies can take to exploit these opportunities.Technologies In The Legal Industry - This section provides a descriptive list of technologies used by legal firms to increase operational efficiency.
This section also provides a list of major technology providers for the legal industry.Online Legal Services - This section describes the emerging online legal services market: market characteristics, competitive landscape, end users and threats.Porter’s Five Forces - This chapter describes the industry competition through porter’s five forces analysis.PESTEL Analysis - This chapter describes the market opportunity assessment through PESTEL analysis.Legal Industry Country Landscape - This section provides information about legal system and legal services overview in major countries.Global Market Size And Growth - This section contains the global historic (2015-2019) and forecast (2019-2023) market values, and drivers and restraints that support and control the growth of the market in the historic and forecast period.Segmentation - This section contains the market values (2015-2023) and analysis for different segments in the market.Global Macro Comparison - The global legal services market comparison with macro-economic factors gives the legal services market size, percentage of GDP, and average legal services market expenditure.Regional Analysis - This section contains the historic (2015-2019) and forecast (2019-2023) market value and growth, and market share comparison by region and country.Legal Industry Country Landscape - This section covers details on the legal system and on the legal industry in major countries covered in the report.Regional Market Size and Growth - This section contains the region’s market size (2019), historic (2015-2019) and forecast (2019-2023) market value, and growth and market share comparison of major countries within the region.
This section gives key financial details of mergers and acquisitions which have shaped the market in recent years.Global Mergers And Acquisitions - This section provides the regional split of mergers and acquisitions activities globally.
