Texans owner Bob McNair recently closed the books on a record season for the franchise. He sat down with Texans TV's Brooke Bentley to review the year and discuss how the team plans to take the next step in 2008. Below is the transcript of the second part of the interview.
Brooke Bentley (Texans TV): This will be general manager Rick Smith's second draft with the Texans. What have you been most pleased about in regards to his personnel decisions?
Bob McNair: I think that he has been very good at carrying out his plan. We've say down and discussed our strategy of what our plan was and he has gone out and executed that plan. I think that is to his credit, because that gives you a consistency in what you do instead of jumping around from one area to the next. He was highly focused and he accomplished what we set out to accomplish. I was real pleased with the job that he did.
Brooke Bentley: Another person largely responsible for the team's improvement is coach Gary Kubiak. Can you talk about your relationship with coach Kubiak and what you two discussed at the end of the 2007 season?
Bob McNair: We always review our players. The coaches sit down and they visit with the players and then they do their own assessment. Then Gary will visit with the position coaches to get their assessments. He has his assessments. Then he will visit with Rick and his people, and then I visit with him and he gives his assessments after talking with everyone and sort of reevaluating everything. They do this after the season is over. They don't do this immediately. They wait a week or two and then come back and do it because sometimes you are worn out or you are emotional and your view might change. So it is better to wait a little bit of time.
We sat down and talked about where we are and where we want to be and what we need to do and how we want to possibly try to upgrade it and constantly upgrade on our coaching staff. Of course, as you know, we did that. We did it the year before and we did it again this year. I think that is to coach Kubiak's credit because sometimes coaches get locked in with the assistants that they have, and that's not a good situation. You need to keep trying to improve there and get better just like you do with your players. When you stop doing that, you are going to go backwards instead of forwards.
We are delighted to have Ray Rhodes (assistant defensive backs coach) with us. We are delighted to have Alex Gibbs (assistant head coach) with us, and these are two experienced people who really bring a lot to our coaching staff. I think they work well with our younger coaches and I think it's going to make our younger coaches better coaches. They all recognize that.
{QUOTE}Brooke Bentley: When you think about 2008, what are you goals for this team?
Bob McNair: Our goal is to be in the playoffs. That's where we want to be. We have every hope that's where we will be. It's always dependent on a lot of factors, some of which are beyond your control. But I think we will be competitive enough and if the ball bounces our way a few times, I think we have a very good chance of being there.
Brooke Bentley: What do you the Texans have to do next season to be in the playoffs?
Bob McNair: We have to be more consistent. We had several games, two or three games, last year where we didn't play as well, and we have to go out and play well in every game. We have to avoid digging a hole for ourselves and starting off slow or having lapses. Too often, we would have one good quarter and one bad quarter, one good quarter and one bad quarter. We've got to just have four good quarters and string them together. That's mental discipline and it takes a little time to develop that. I think we are developing it.
I think that having players that are another year older – it's just like you saw Mario (Williams) make a big improvement in his play from his first year to second year. That's typically when players make the biggest move, the biggest improvement. We've got Amobi (Okoye), who's going to make a big step up. We've got Fred Bennett; we think he'll make a big step up. And we've got a lot of young players who are really just coming into their own. And then you bring into the mix some of the veteran free agents that we've signed that are good, solid people, and I think we are going to have a good combination of the young, enthusiastic and the seasoned veteran that is still an outstanding player.
Brooke Bentley: Finally, you're one of the main reasons why the Super Bowl was in Houston after the 2003 season. Now, you're behind the city's bid to host the 2012 Super Bowl. Can you talk about the efforts to bring the Super Bowl back to Houston, why Houston deserves it and what the next steps are before the final decision?
Bob McNair: We have the facilities. These are the best facilities in the world. No one has better facilities than we do and we are in a great position to host a Super Bowl. A lot of it – it is a vote by the owners and in the past, many times, that vote is not necessarily determined by which team is in the position to be the best host. Sometimes, it depends upon who has got a new stadium and have they made promises that they would get a Super Bowl if they got a new stadium, and that sort of thing. But I think that we have shown that we can do a good job. The city can do a great job and, hopefully, the owners will see the value of being in Houston and we are certainly going to do everything we can convince that this is the place they should be. And, of course, we'd love to be playing in that game in our stadium.
