Houston Texans: Where Do They Go from Here and Will Gary Kubiak Be Going With?

It would be hard to argue with anyone that said that the Texans 31-17 loss to the Titans on Sunday was rock bottom for the team. Then again, I've thought rock bottom had come at several previous points this season.

The loss Sunday seemed to accentuate all of the issues the Texans have been having this season. 

They got off to a terrible start, made a pedestrian quarterback look like Peyton Manning and were forced to take the ball out of the hands of Arian Foster because they had to go away from the run.

If this is rock bottom for the Texans, where do they go from here?

On paper, it would seem that the Texans don't need to make too many changes. The roster is littered with Pro Bowlers. Matt Schaub, Andre Johnson, Owen Daniels, DeMeco Ryans and Mario Williams have all recently been to the Pro Bowl. After this year, Arian Foster will join that group. There is no lack of talent on the roster.

They also had no idea how bad the injuries would be. Mario Williams has been playing with a sports hernia all season. He was finally shut down for the season prior to the game against the Titans. Andre Johnson has been a game-time decision seemingly all season with a tender ankle. DeMeco Ryans has been out since Week 6. Owen Daniels has missed five games as well. Role-players Connor Barwin and Ben Tate were done for the season before it even started. Even the best of teams would struggle with an injury list that long.

The team is still young, too. You don't really feel like this is a team whose window is closing. Most of the older veterans are more expendable, while the key pieces are still young enough to keep the Texans competitive for several more years.

All those things considered, the Texans seem close. Finishes of 9-7 and 8-8 in the previous two season would seem to provide more evidence to that point.

But are they really that close?

Consider that every other team in the AFC South has made the playoffs at least twice since the Texans have been in existence. Texans owner Bob McNair, general manager Rick Smith and head coach Gary Kubiak have longed preached about building a team the right way. This includes staying away from bad contracts and getting your key pieces via the draft. We were told that this might be a slow process, but if we had patience, it would pay off.

Nine seasons later, Texans fans are still waiting while teams like the Buccaneers, Rams, Jaguars and Chiefs are making playoff runs just one season after being terrible. Why do the Texans fans have to be patient while teams all around the NFL change their fortunes in one offseason?

The question for the Texans brass is how they can expect to get any better when the same problems persist season after season.

The Texans have never, and I repeat never, had game-changing players in the secondary. The issue finally came to a head this season as the Texans have the 32nd-ranked pass defense in the NFL. For those keeping score at home, that's dead last.

In the history of the franchise, the Texans have really only had one above-average player in the secondary. That was Dunta Robinson. The Texans found out the hard way that in order to keep above-average corners in today's NFL, you have to pay them like elite corners.

The safety position has always been a problem. Eugene Wilson and Bernard Pollard are probably the two best safeties in the history of the team. That's pretty sad. Not only have they not played in Houston very long, but both players might be sent on the first plane out of town after the season for their poor play.

The gripe most often heard about the Texans is that they don't know how to finish a game. They lead the league in the unofficial statistic of come-from-ahead defeats. This has been true for all of their existence.

I realize that the coaches can't go out there and make plays for the team, but at some point it falls on the coaches to find a way to light a fire under the players' rear ends to finish the game.

The players say all the right things about Gary Kubiak and his coaching staff, and they really do appear to love playing for them. Part of that is undoubtedly because Kubiak has a famously laid-back attitude. You have to wonder, though, if that attitude is leading to complacency and a culture of losing.

I'm not advocating that Kubiak, McNair and Smith turn into a three-headed Jerry Jones or Al Davis, but maybe some of these guys could use a shakeup. You can't have players thinking that losing like they have will ultimately have no consequences.

Unfortunately, I don't think that is in Kubiak's DNA. This is why I think it's time for a change. Mediocrity has gone on too long.

The purpose of this move would end up being two-fold. First, it gives the franchise an opportunity to bring in a new head coach that can get this team pointed back in the right direction.

Secondly, it will allow for a new defensive coaching staff to be brought in. There are talent issues on defense that can't be corrected with coaching, but in other areas, there is mass underachieving.

The pass rush is chief among them, but it's not for a lack of money or resources spent on that position. The defensive line boasts two first-round draft picks in Mario Williams and Amobi Okoye and a well-paid free-agent acquisition in Antonio Smith. Each individual player has had his moments, but the group has never played well consistently as a unit.

The new defensive coordinator, whoever it would end up being, would need to find a way to get that group to play up to their potential.

While these are all things that need to happen, I can't tell you in good faith what will happen. Bob McNair is one of the nicest, caring and most thoughtful men working in football today. That's a lot of what makes him a good owner. He is a fixture in the community, he treats his employees well and he thinks about the people under him as just that—people.

He first and foremost thinks of the football personnel in terms of what they contribute as people, not as players, coaches or scouts. That's not to say he can't fire people. He has done that before. It's just that things need to be in very poor shape for that to happen. It took a 2-14 season to get former coach Dom Capers and former GM Charlie Casserly fired.

By all accounts, this team isn't in critical shape. They just can't get over the hump.

The problem is that the longer they struggle to get there, the hump gets bigger. Players get older and fans get apathetic. The Texans aren't quite there yet, but if they don't make a change quick, we'll be there before you know it.