Houston Texans hire Wade Phillips as defensive coordinator
Wade Phillips was hired as the Houston Texans’ new defensive coordinator this Wednesday.
The Texans are hoping that the ex-Dallas Cowboys head coach will be able to turn the team around from being the worst last season to one that will be a Super Bowl contender in the 2011 season.
Phillips was fired from the Cowboys after starting the season 1-7. He takes the place of Frank Bush with the Texans, who was fired two days ago as defensive coordinator. Linebackers coach Johnny Holland and assistant coaches David Gibbs and Robert Saleh
were also fired.
A source says that Phillips is to earn $2.1 million in the three years that he is supposed to stay in Houston, making him the highest paid defensive coordinator in the league.
The Texans ended their season with a 6-10 record, losing eight of their last ten games, because of their weak defense which is ranked as one of the the worst in the league. They allowed an average of 386.6 total yards per game with 267.5 yards.
Phillips is the third defensive coordinator to have joined the team under head coach Gary Kubiak. Earlier this week, owner Bob McNair said that Kubiak will be staying even though they had some difficulties this season. Before Bush was Richard Smith, and
both had no experience as defensive coordinators. The team said that they needed someone with more experience.
63 year old Phillips ran the defense for the Denver Broncos from 1986-1992 when Kubiak himself was playing as backup quarterback for John Elway.
The connection between Kubiak and Phillips goes back to the 1970s when Phillips’ father, Bum, was the head coach for the Houston Oilers and Kubiak was a ball boy. Bum Phillips showed up at practice last week and spoke with McNair, giving an impression that
Wade Phillips was going to join the team.
The Texans’ defense has been horrible from the start. They allowed an average of 410.5 yards in each of their first games and were only able to win four of those games because the offense made up for the lack of defense by scoring at least 30 points in each
of the games.
However, with Phillips bringing the 3-4 alignment to the Texans as opposed to the 4-3 that they have been accustomed to, they might just have a chance at improving significantly over the summer and stand a chance next season.
Stay tuned!
Tags: