Houston Texans hire Lovie Smith, 63, as their new coach — his 3rd NFL head coaching job

After giv­ing David Cul­ley just one year to prove him­self, the Hous­ton Tex­ans on Mon­day hired Lovie Smith as their new head coach, adding a vet­er­an with a track record of suc­cess to a team that faces ques­tions about its hir­ing process.

Smith, who is Black, is the sec­ond minor­i­ty can­di­date to be hired this off­sea­son after the Mia­mi Dol­phins on Sun­day hired San Fran­cis­co 49ers offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Mike McDaniel, who is biracial.

Smith spent last sea­son as the Tex­ans asso­ciate head coach and defen­sive coor­di­na­tor. He will take over for Cul­ley, who is also Black and was fired after one season.

The Tex­ans inter­viewed mul­ti­ple can­di­dates over the past few weeks, includ­ing Bri­an Flo­res, Hines Ward, Josh McCown and Joe Lom­bar­di. Flo­res, who is Black, was fired despite post­ing win­ning records in the final two of his three sea­sons with the Mia­mi Dolphins.

Flo­res sued the NFL, the Dol­phins and two oth­er teams last week over alleged racist hir­ing prac­tices for coach­es and gen­er­al managers.

Flo­res issued a state­ment through his legal team applaud­ing the Tex­ans for hir­ing a Black man but ques­tion­ing why he wasn’t offered the job.

“We would be remiss not to men­tion that Mr. Flo­res was one of three final­ists for the Tex­ans’ head coach posi­tion and, after a great inter­view and mutu­al inter­est, it is obvi­ous that the only rea­son Mr. Flo­res was not select­ed was his deci­sion to stand up against racial inequal­i­ty across the NFL,” his legal team said in a statement.

The Tex­ans had been crit­i­cized by some in the media this week for even con­sid­er­ing McCown for the posi­tion because the 42-year-old for­mer NFL quar­ter­back has nev­er coached at any lev­el aside from vol­un­teer­ing with his son’s high school team. McCown spent part of the 2020 sea­son on the Tex­ans prac­tice squad before retir­ing fol­low­ing a 17-year career.

The Tex­ans raved about the qual­i­ties Smith brings to the team.

“He is one of the most respect­ed coach­es in the NFL and an estab­lished leader,” Tex­ans gen­er­al man­ag­er Nick Case­rio said in a state­ment. “A proven win­ner, Lovie has shown the abil­i­ty to devel­op play­ers both on and off the field for years. We had numer­ous dis­cus­sions with count­less coach­es, exec­u­tives and play­ers, and what revealed itself is that Lovie has both the lead­er­ship and peo­ple skills it takes to lead us forward.”

The 63-year-old Smith joined the Tex­ans last off­sea­son after spend­ing 2016–20 as the coach at Illinois.

This will be the third NFL head coach­ing job for Smith, who coached the Chica­go Bears for nine sea­sons and the Tam­pa Bay Buc­ca­neers for two sea­sons end­ing in 2015.

Now he takes over a team in the process of a com­plete rebuild after trad­ing or releas­ing almost all of its top play­ers in the past cou­ple of years. The Tex­ans went 4–13 this past sea­son in a year when star quar­ter­back Deshaun Wat­son did not play after a trade request and amid 22 law­suits alleg­ing sex­u­al harass­ment or assault.

After the hir­ing of Smith is com­plete, the Tex­ans will con­tin­ue an off­sea­son in which they are expect­ed to final­ly trade Wat­son. They have the third pick in the draft after not hav­ing a first-round pick since 2019 and could acquire more high draft picks if they’re able to trade Watson.

Smith becomes the fifth head coach in fran­chise his­to­ry, fol­low­ing Dom Capers, Gary Kubi­ak, Bill O’Brien and Culley.

“I have so many friends, fam­i­ly, team­mates and coach­es to thank for sup­port­ing me and help­ing me con­tin­ue to do what I love, which is teach­ing and devel­op­ing play­ers,” Smith said in a state­ment. “I under­stand the respon­si­bil­i­ty I have to this orga­ni­za­tion and this city to devel­op a cham­pi­onship-lev­el pro­gram. I’m ready to get to work and build it together.”

Not­ed Tex­ans own­er Cal McNair: “I’ve had an extreme amount of respect for Lovie for years now and that only grew with the work he did last sea­son and through­out this process. I’m excit­ed for him and his fam­i­ly as we con­tin­ue to evolve as an organization.”

Smith was 144–81 with the Bears, lead­ing them to the Super Bowl in the 2006 sea­son, where they lost to the Indi­anapo­lis Colts. He strug­gled in his stint with the Bucs, going 2–14 in his first sea­son and 6–10 the fol­low­ing year before being let go.

Smith went 17–39 at Illi­nois before being fired with one reg­u­lar-sea­son game left in his fifth sea­son. The Texas native began his coach­ing career in 1980 as the defen­sive coor­di­na­tor for his high school alma mater in tiny Big Sandy, Texas, before mov­ing on to col­lege coach­ing in 1983.

His first NFL job came in 1996 when he was hired to coach line­back­ers for the Buccaneers.

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