Why Texans defensive coordinator Richard Smith needs to be fired

Here is the argument why Richard Smith should no longer be the defensive coordinator for the Houston Texans. It’s likely if he is let go, it doesn’t happen until the end of the season (unless the defense looks terrible in this upcoming stretch of games).

I fully expect for the Texans defense to have a good game against the Lions. The Lions offense was bad before their starting quarterback and #1 wide receiver were gone, so I don’t expect it to be better now.

In any event, here’s my one stop shop on everything Richard Smith. I’ll try to give you a bunch of facts on this, and see if you agree with my conclusion. Apologies if you have read any of this before, I am just trying to accumulate all of this in one place for those who have an interest.

For those who have read my writing for a while, I believe I have a reputation for being patient and not an off with his head, fire em sort of writer. But at some point you just have to say, c’mon now, or perhaps various strong profanity:

Background on Hire:

Richard Smith wasn’t the Texans first choice as defensive coordinator. At the time the Texans were looking for coaches, so were a lot of teams. There weren’t a bunch of great defensive coordinators available at the time where you knew you should throw a wheel barrow full of money at them so that they could run the show. (Jim Bates and Jerry Gray were both mentioned. Bates lasted one bad year as Denver’s coordinator before being fired, and Gray was not retained by Buffalo and is now a defensive backs coach for the Redskins).

Originally, the plan was for Richard Smith to be a co-coordinator with Frank Bush who was with the Cardinals. Arizona didn’t grant permission for Bush to interview with the Texans, but he later came to the team after he was let go and is their “Senior Defensive Assistant.”

Here are the backgrounds of both Richard Smith and Frank Bush (I add Bush’s background in case you are thinking of him taking over):

Neither comes from a distinct defensive coaching tree, and you really don’t have a good sense of their defensive philosophy. Smith claims he has been influenced by a lot of coaches. At the time, Smith was with Miami, he was a co-coordinator for a 3-4 defense switching from a primarily 4-3 one, and Nick Saban was running that defense and attending all the defensive meetings.

Richard Smith’s Woeful Start with the Texans

When Richard Smith first came to the Texans, he said he wanted to run an aggressive 4-3. At the time, he thought the players the Texans had in 2005 would fit the system “extremely well.”

In the preseason, Smith decided it would be a great motivational tool to put pictures of rocks in the defensive player’s lockers to symbolize how the players should be strong, steady and cohesive.

The defense’s first three games under Smith made you want to throw some rocks. Catastrophically bad. The Eagles put up 441 yards, the Colts 515 and the Redskins 495. In the first three games, they allowed an average 32.7 points and 483.7 yards. To put that in context, the awful Vic Fangio 2005 defense allowed an average 21.7 points and 358.3 yards.

If you want to waste some moments of your life you will never get back, you can watch a video of Richard Smith talking about why those first three games were bad and him waxing philosophical about rocks. He explains it takes a while before a defense learns to play together but that they are all better now. He said that before the 2007 season.

The Texans Defense is Still Bad

Though the Texans defense isn’t as catastrophic as those first three starts, it is still bad bad bad.

In an overly simple explanation, Football Outsiders ranks defenses based on their defensive efficiency–play by play comparing them to NFL baselines for different situations. Performances are adjusted for quality of opponents.

The offense is 19th, the defense is 31st, and the special teams is 7th in league. After the Dolphin game, the defense actually moved down a spot from the 30th ranking.

The Texans defense ranks 26th against the pass and 32nd against the run. This is not good for a team that is supposedly designed to stop the run according to Smith.

Their consistency ranking is 4. This means that the defense is very consistent — consistently awful.

At the bottom of the page, they have a chart called “Worst Ever DVOA Watch.” Assessing the first 5 games of the season, the Texans 2008 is the 3rd worst that they have measured. But hey, it’s an improvement! The Texans 2006 defense was the absolute worst after 5 games. But both the 2006 and 2008 defenses were worse than Vic Fangio’s 2005 bad bad defense that ranked 4th worst.

(That last paragraph made me want to vomit while writing it. And I’m one of those people who has a hard time throwing up even if I am sick.)

Overall, the Football Outsider rankings for the Texans defense at the end of the season have been as follows:

2005: (Capers/Fangio): 32nd

2006: 31st

2007: 30th

2008: Ack, this is not looking so good.

Yeah, all these things are just stats. But what do you eyes tell you? Did it kill you to see how the defense was set up for the end of the Jaguar game, with the defense completely out of position to stop David Garrard? You could go game by game and point out absolutely baffling defensive calls and breakdowns.

I could put together an entire post of grotesque defensive plays over the last three years. Everything from the horrible almost 500 yards a game start to the Texans’ recent win against the Dolphins being partially due to the Texans defense unintentionally letting them score quickly and getting the offense to win the game. I don’t particularly want to write up all the defensive sickness since Smith has been here, so just take my word for it. Lee Evans would.

Not Terribly Convincing Reasons for Smith to Stay

Really, I can’t think of any legitimate ones. If you have an offensive-minded head coach, you want a great defensive coordinator to hand the keys to. Someone who has a proven defensive system that is easy to teach to young defensive players.

There are three main points that are sometimes made in Smith’s defense by the rare people who attempt it.

1. The offense does the defense no favors with turnovers. Having to defend short fields and staying on the field a lot certainly doesn’t help your defensive stats. Even so, the Texans have been near the bottom of the league in many key defensive categories, including red zone defense (last in the league by a lot, allowing opposing teams to score 93.8% of the time). The Texans offense’s time of possession hasn’t been awful this year.

2. The Texans defense is young and has many needs. True and true. But do you really want to trust an inexperienced defensive coordinator in assisting picking and developing players? Do you really want the guy in that video be the one who is trying to sell free agents to play with the Texans?

I believe Smith wasn’t fired after last year because the Texans used the excuse that the secondary was very injured and the team was young. I very much believe in patience in the NFL, but with Smith this has become absurd.

Kubiak made an immediate improvement on the offensive side of the ball even before he truly remade the roster. It’s not like he has a ton of superstars and high draft picks on that offense. With the exception of Andre Johnson, the wide receivers and tight ends are guys that nobody really wanted. And it is not like they have been playing under a system for a long time.

The offensive side of the ball has a plan. They are a work in progress, but you see progress. The GM knows what sorts of players they are targeting for that side of the ball. On defense, the Texans are trying out all sorts of experiments to see if things work, but maybe they don’t have a great sense of what sort of 4-3 they want to be.

The Colts and the Titans both run a 4-3, and have done a nice job of acquiring players that suit what they do. The Texans have drafted some nice players on defense, but some of those players (Mario Williams, DeMeco Ryans) would succeed in multiple systems. Who knows what sorts of players that the Texans target on defense because you don’t really know what they are trying to accomplish.

Conclusion-Smith Must Go

I think Smith has had enough time to develop a defense where you can see the players play better as a team than they are as individuals. I take no pleasure in writing this up but I think this is a topic that needs to be discussed. I know fans know the defense is bad, they just may not have an idea of how bad it is.

I’m just a fan who would like to see disciplined, smart, physical defense. And I know the Texans need more players on defense. I just don’t want Smith to be the guy who has any input into that or is the one developing them.

I have no confidence that he can fix this defense, and I shouldn’t have any confidence in him doing it because he has never been in charge of a defense before or fixed one. I’d like to talk with you about this some. Do you have anything to add? Am I missing some things I should consider?

Thanks for reading this far. I promised a commenter that I would write this, and I’m done.