It's not a simple answer, if that's what you think. The original owner was a well-respected, well-loved guy who brought a team back after Bud Adams left. Bob McNair overpaid to beat out heavily favored LA for an expansion team. For this , he was given over a decade of love, admiration and thanks. And, I would argue, deservedly so.
However, close watchers of the team began to notice that Bob McNair was not obsessed with winning, like some owners are, but rather was happy having a sometimes competitive team that would be in the division race most of the season and even make the playoffs some seasons. He never seemed to care that the team was not capable of making a serious Super Bowl run. It was enough for Bob to keep the fans happy, keep the tickets and merchandize moving and the team profitable. Indeed he was correct, Forbes usually had the franchise in the top 10 of most valuable franchises. And this did matter to Bob McNair.
Eventually, however, this "satisfaction with mediocrity" began to wear thin. As mentioned, it took quite awhile for this to set in with the masses since he had built up such an enormous cache of goodwill. But about the time public perception began to turn on McNair, he got sick with cancer and instantly became a figure deserving public sympathy over scorn. Things did get a bit wobbly when one or two players publicly criticized Bob McNair. The truth is, these were contract disputes over money but their savvy agents turned some of the public against him with some racial allegations. And so Bob was finally flushed out to address these agent-created controversies, and there he was bald and frail from all the chemo, making apologies for things he probably had no memory of, if they were ever true to begin with.
During this period when McNair the senior was fighting cancer, many changes were made inside the organization as head coach Bill O'Brien solidified his position. He won a battle with the old GM who had been there longer, and then filled the staff in his own image. Some put the moves under the collective umbrella term -- "Patriots South." Ironically enough, one of the guys O'Brien brought in eventually helped O'Brien get fired. He is a Rasputin-like, man of faith named Jack Easterby who was a sort of corporate messaging coach with no football experience at any level. But he saw a weak situation with ownership and ensconced himself inside the walls of the part of the McNair family that owns and runs the team now.
Technically, the current owner of the team is the widow Janice. But son Cal is in charge of the day-to-day operations. Cal has admitted to having some type of social anxiety affliction. He hates talking to the media, hates being in public. hates talking to fans, hates talking to most people generally and rarely gives interviews or appears in public.
Bob McNair has another son named Cary who, ironically enough, is a very capable fellow. The family itself still owns several large ongoing operations, both corporate and charitable that are larger and more complex than the NFL team. Knowing the end was near for him, Bob McNair put his son Cary in charge of all of that -- over all the complicated businesses and the family foundation. The only thing he trusted Cal with was the idiot-proof NFL team -- the one business no one can screw up.
And so here we are. The Houston NFL team, which started off with an amazing amount of built-in goodwill, is now nominally in control of a guy who is afraid of his own shadow and afraid to leave his house (covid or no covid). And the guy actually making the decisions for the team is this Jack Easterby character who is some type of wannabe combo of Tony Robbins & Joel Osteen. It is a complete and total disaster.
Last edited: Feb 12, 2021