Despite reports that the Texans had narrowed their list of candidates down to journeyman quarterback Josh McCown and former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, Adam Schefter of ESPN has reported that current defensive coordinator and associate head coach Lovie Smith is now in talks with Houston about potentially becoming its next head coach. Smith interviewed with the team earlier Sunday night, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. This is the second time Smith has been considered for the Texans’ head-coaching position, the first time being when he interviewed with Houston in December 2013 before accepting the head-coaching job in Tampa Bay.
Smith has spent 16 of the last 18 years as a head coach at some level. After three years of coaching at the high school level, Smith spent the next 13 years bouncing around the NCAA as a position coach with stops at Tulsa, Wisconsin, Arizona State, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio State. He accepted a job as the Buccaneers’ linebackers coach in 1996 and, after five seasons in Tampa Bay, was hired as the defensive coordinator of the Rams. Smith took the St. Louis defense from a league-worst 29.4 points per game to seventh in the league, allowing 17.1 points per game in his first year leading the defense.
Smith soon earned the head-coaching job for the Bears in 2004. Despite losing starting quarterback Rex Grossman to injury for most of the 2005 season, the Bears would get a first-round bye in the playoffs as the NFC’s second seed in Lovie’s second year as head coach, helping Smith win the AP NFL Coach of the Year Award. In 2006, the Bears were the NFC’s No. 1 seed, owning the NFL’s second-ranked scoring offense and fifth-ranked overall defense. In his third season as an NFL head coach, Smith became the first Black head coach to lead his team to a Super Bowl, and the second minority head coach after Tom Flores.
The next six years saw the Bears miss the playoffs five times despite only two losing seasons and never finishing with a record worse than 7-9. Smith was fired after failing to reach the playoffs during the 2012 season despite finishing with a record of 10-6, the last winning season the Bears would see until 2018.
After a year hiatus from the NFL, Smith was brought in to replace Greg Schiano in Tampa Bay.
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