Sports Illustrated recently dropped this longform article which I've been marveling at for a couple days, and I thought it was worthy of its own thread instead of being tucked into N/V to receive a couple comments before the latest slapfight takes over the thread. https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/12/10/ex-chaplain-jack-easterby-houston-texans-chaos-after-power-struggle-daily-cover We've known for a while that Easterby somehow worked his way up from "Patriots chaplain" to "Texas front office insider" but this is the first deep dive I've seen into how exactly that happened. It starts out mundane, even boring, at first but gets deeply weird as the story continues digging. Some excerpts from the article, which I strongly recommend everyone read in full: quote:Easterby was well-liked, even loved, by most at South Carolina. There he earned the ear of Eric Hyman, the Gamecocks’ athletic director from 2005 to ’12. Hyman echoes Odom, saying Easterby was years ahead of the now-pervasive trend toward holistic care and mental health for athletes, acting as an all-around problem-solver. “He was sort of like an ombudsman,” Hyman says. But the unprecedented character coach role sometimes put Easterby’s short-term responsibilities and long-term goals in conflict. He was expected to serve the role of a selfless team chaplain, but he was also a young assistant who understood what he had to do to get ahead: Altruism and ambition don’t always sync. One lower-level athletic department staffer during Easterby’s time at South Carolina put it this way: “When it was just us, he’d want to know how you were doing and wanted to help you in any way he could.” But if an important coach or player walked into the room, “it was like, all of the sudden, you didn’t exist.” quote:Easterby was returning to New England two months after he was hired by the Texans, joining his colleagues turned rivals on the sprawling backyard lawn set up for the outdoor reception hosted by Kraft. Sometime after the cocktail hour started and before drivers took guests home, Easterby was seen huddled with Caserio, New England’s top personnel executive, long enough to draw attention. Fewer than 24 hours later, back in Houston, Gaine was abruptly fired; the Texans then requested an interview with Caserio. (Gaine declined to comment to SI.). A few days following the dismissal, news broke that the Patriots were filing tampering charges against the Texans for the improper pursuit of Caserio. quote:The Texans, ultimately, did not hire a GM; instead, both O’Brien and Easterby took on more responsibilities—and gained more power. Some of Easterby’s work during his first season fell under his team development title. Austin Exford, a defensive back from Appalachian State who signed with the Texans as an undrafted free agent in 2019, describes Easterby as a positive, guiding force who helped the team’s rookies transition to the professional ranks. “He took a personal responsibility to make sure that these are the best rookies in the NFL,” says Exford, who was released from the practice squad in October 2019. Easterby held weekly meetings with the rookies, Exford says, leading exercises in which he’d ask each player to evaluate the personal circle in his life or discuss how he’d handle off-the-field situations involving players who were in the news. After that latest quote block, and particularly the bolded parts, I'm going to reach back to the very beginning of the article for this: quote:General manager Brian Gaine was Robb Stark, the intended future King of the North, who was murdered by the end of Season 3. (Gaine would be fired after only 17 months as GM.) Coach Bill O’Brien was compared to King Joffrey Baratheon, a hot-headed ruler prone to screaming and chopping off heads, only to be poisoned in Season 4. (O’Brien would be fired in October of this year.) It turns out Easterby was also involved in the Jovan Belcher incident, after-the-fact: quote:Easterby bolstered his value to the Chiefs under unthinkable circumstances. In December 2012, Jovan Belcher, a 25-year-old linebacker, killed the mother of his infant child, drove to team headquarters and shot himself in front of Pioli, coach Romeo Crennel and assistant Gary Gibbs. In the aftermath, lines formed outside the conference room where Easterby met with players and coaches. Pioli, Crennel and Gibbs in particular spent hours with him. Executives began to pay for his weekly flights into town. “I know,” Cassel says, “that he had a lot to do with starting the healing process.” In light of that, it's interesting that Romeo Crennel is now interim HC of the Texans. Easterby continues to be involved in a surprising amount of the NFL's recent character dramas: quote:As had happened in Kansas City, the Patriots would need Easterby. When tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested and charged with murder in June of Easterby’s first year, a new team turned to its character coach for guidance. When New England traded for Josh Gordon, an All-Pro talent with a long history of drug and addiction issues, Easterby was more than an influence—he became more like a minder, the person who checked in with Gordon every morning, making sure the wideout made it to work and went to meetings. When the Patriots won Super Bowls in the 2014, ’16 and ’18 seasons, the character coach basked in some of the credit. quote:O’Brien, who assumed the GM title nine months before being fired, took the brunt of the backlash for Hopkins’s unpopular trade, which has proved to be lopsided. While O’Brien negotiated the terms—the consensus was that the coach wanted to trade Hopkins as well—the same sources who recounted Easterby’s perceived coldness to Hopkins say it went further: They describe Easterby as the first, and most persistent, advocate for the team’s trading the receiver out of Houston. One of these people recalls hearing Easterby saying about Hopkins in front of small groups of people on multiple occasions in 2019, “We need to move on from that person,” without using his name. Another recalls learning that the Texans discussed trading Hopkins as early as the summer of 2019. quote:Easterby also began occasionally addressing the team on the nights preceding games, turning the meeting room into his pulpit. But some of his efforts to relate to the majority-Black roster occasionally failed him; in some cases he even caused offense. During one Saturday-night meeting in 2019, Easterby, who is white and cites Martin Luther King Jr. as a role model, asked players to think back to when they were growing up “playing ball with Ray-Ray and Ki-Ki and them,” according to three people in the room for these meetings. Some saw the language as more of a misguided attempt to fit in—players often called Easterby a “try-hard.” But at least one person was bothered enough by what they saw as a use of Black stereotypes that they debated saying something to Easterby. (They decided not to take on that conversation with a game the next day.) A few weeks later, one of the sources says, Easterby used similar language again. That last part about the player suspected he was being followed, after the excerpt about Easterby being involved in the counseling for the Belcher murder-suicide, makes me recall another bombshell story from some years ago, about how Scott Pioli had turned the Chiefs organization into a deeply paranoid and suspicious workplace. Anyone remember the asides about Todd Haley insisting his cell phone was bugged and how the staff would close all the blinds because they were convinced they were being observed? More recent drama, Easterby-involved! quote:Even in an industry known for high turnover, many of the changes made during Easterby’s tenure sent shockwaves through the organization. J.J. Moses, a well-liked former player serving as the team’s player engagement director, was dismissed after the 2019 season, along with several other staff members. Amy Palcic, who led an award-winning p.r. staff, was fired midseason for not being a “culture fit”; the move raised more questions than answers about the kind of culture the team was trying to build. (Both Moses and Palcic declined to comment. As part of a statement provided to SI by a team spokesperson on McNair’s behalf, the owner said, “I am the one that made the decision to part ways with our GM and head coach. … I will not get into specifics about any decisions made regarding former employees of the Texans other than to say that I was aware of and approved every decision, and I hold the responsibility and accountability for each one.”) quote:Just like Gaine had been isolated and fired, just like Hopkins had been traded, just like the roster had been made over, another domino would fall. Nine months removed from a close playoff loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Chiefs, as the Texans worked their way to an 0–4 start, one player was approached by Easterby. The executive had foreshadowed a coaching change, the player told a person close to him, and asked for the player’s support when it happened. The day after a loss to the Vikings, Easterby wandered aimlessly around the office in a way that struck others as unusual, while telling colleagues that he had spoken to McNair after the defeat. Several hours later, O’Brien was fired (O’Brien, through his agent, declined multiple requests for comment). quote:Last November, the Texans boarded their team charter for a 10-hour trip home after a game against the Jaguars in London. Mid-flight, several players gathered around a table in the galley area, playing cards and sharing laughs after their sixth win of the season. Nearby, Easterby knelt in an aisle, speaking in a low voice to McNair. The volume of the card game grew, and Easterby took his stand. He rose and made a move toward the galley, shushing the players, demanding quiet—imploring them that Mr. McNair needs his sleep. Then he returned to his post, by the owner’s side, the one voice in his ear. Anyway I'll end this with another Houston Texans-related story that dropped a couple days prior to this SI article, plus a few goon comments: https://twitter.com/McClain_on_NFL/status/1336319114730762241 Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:I'm sure you'll end up with someone who has great Christian morals and is a real Leader of Men™. wyoak posted:they've been getting heat for Easterby being too powerful and basically a BoB who out-BoB'd the actual BoB, it's probably a way to deflect some of that heat while letting Easterby consolidate more power behind the scenes Impossibly Perfect Sphere posted:Tony Dungy is literally going to make sure this dude is an Evangelical Christian. That will be his contribution. Ehud posted:Tony Dungy was on the Miami Dolphins bullygate task force committee and we haven't had a single bullying issue since! Parallelwoody posted:I always thought he had strong "I'm in a cult" energy.
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# ¿ Dec 12, 2020 18:34 |
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# ¿ May 11, 2024 18:59 |
There's an interesting B plot here with the Patriots harboring a bunch of charlatans under apparently Belichick's approval (Guerrero and Easterby). I didn't include an excerpt but the article goes into some detail about how Easterby became Belichick's confidant.
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# ¿ Dec 12, 2020 22:48 |
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# ¿ Jan 6, 2021 15:45 |
xpost from N/V, for posterity: https://twitter.com/JennyVrentas/status/1350448092282294273 quote:According to multiple sources, Easterby has reached out to several players this week with a personal plea. Often through tears, he’s shared accounts of his receiving death threats and his family’s having to relocate to a hotel. He implored these players to support him to prominent Texans, like Watson, or publicly, these sources say.
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2021 16:58 |
Holy cats lol how does this clusterfuck become even more entangled??quote:Easterby delivered a speech that was described in multiple direct accounts as a lengthy missive intended to be rousing. The discourse centered almost entirely on Deshaun Watson, the Texans’ star quarterback at the end of a historically great—if wasted—season. Easterby, those sources said, was effusive in his praise for the quarterback, but to the dismay of many, he did not extend the same attention to: J.J. Watt, the team leader and greatest player in franchise history, who was on the verge of completing only his second healthy season in the past five years; the turmoil that engulfed the organization; the midseason firing of coach Bill O’Brien; or the future of a franchise seeking new leadership. quote:Watson hoped McNair would listen to him, but his disappointment went deeper than that: He’d also felt a responsibility to his teammates to use his role as the franchise QB to represent their interests to ownership. Texans players, according to one of those sources, had already decided that Watson should be the person to approach McNair and tell the owner the team needed more unified leadership and a clearer direction. Watson, according to one source close to the QB, met with McNair several times before the season’s end; they huddled almost every week. He asked the owner to include Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy in the coaching search, having heard directly from Patrick Mahomes how Bieniemy had helped steer the Chiefs’ QB onto a Hall of Fame career path. The last meeting happened near the end of the season, before Watson addressed the media. When answering a question about Bieniemy as a coaching prospect, he said: “We just need a whole culture shift. ... We need a leader so we can follow that leader ... too many different ideas and too many people thinking that they have this power, and it’s not like that.” quote:Watson, Baker says, asked him to put the sign down, saying that it was “disrespectful.” Baker, sensing that the request was half-hearted, declined, telling Watson, “I appreciate what you’re doing. You’re the leader of this team, but I’m sorry. I’m over it. He has to go.” Baker lowered it momentarily, and Watson walked away. Whether Watson felt obligated to make this request or was prodded to do so, he found himself in an uncomfortable situation shortly before playing a game. quote:Pro Football Talk reported a “well-timed phone call,” from LaMonte to McNair which, if true, shows how he leveraged his two clients. Easterby did not push Caserio to the Panthers as a candidate, according to a source in Carolina with direct knowledge of the search, but did give a positive recommendation when asked and said Caserio would mesh well with coach Matt Rhule.
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2021 17:09 |
Benne posted:We've gone beyond Littlefinger and straight into High Sparrow territory How long until Qyburn?
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2021 22:44 |
Intruder posted:I just wish it wasn't happening at the same time it's happening with the other Houston teams Astros cheating scandal continues to haunt them Rockets Harden trade Texans infected by Christianity Any other teams/incidents?
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 04:38 |
Hahah Deal with it hahahaha absolutely magnificent
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 17:54 |
JJ is out too it seems like. https://twitter.com/LopezOnSports/status/1350568072474669062
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 18:12 |
Shimrra Jamaane posted:I tried to loving tell you about this guy. On that note... November 18, 2018: YOU DON'T KNOW JACK - The most influential Patriot you've never heard of quote:What comes to mind when you hear the name Jack Easterby? quote:"For so long," Slater reveals, "many of us around here prayed for someone like Jack that would be able to come alongside and encourage us in many different ways, especially spiritually. I think he was the perfect man for the job. He's just been such an encouragement." quote:It is this authenticity that draws players instantly to Easterby. quote:"There was a lot of pressure, anxiety, stress due to competition, different environment, lifestyle, I mean, just about everything under the sun," Allen confesses. "The way he was able to put the pieces together and give me some insight on how to perceive some of that stuff and encouraging me to do the same things that I'm doing to keep my personal family together and on good terms, there was a lot that he could bring to the table. It was very useful to have a resource like Jack to go and talk to."
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 18:40 |
Hahahahah https://twitter.com/danorlovsky7/status/1350878516418670601?s=21
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2021 20:14 |
Imagine loving up running things so much you incur mass public protests.
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# ¿ Jan 18, 2021 19:18 |
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1354805090947743748 How many good players remain on the team for Easterby to alienate? I'm assuming Watt is gone too. Cooks, Tunsil? Hargreaves?
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# ¿ Jan 28, 2021 16:41 |
Ahahaha quote:https://twitter.com/NFLscheme/status/1354628913935364098
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# ¿ Jan 29, 2021 16:16 |
Huh. A Patriots fan squirming into here to try to rewrite history? "Patriots livid over Easterman joining Texans," "Totally pissed them off" https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2019/06/18/bedard-patriots-burning-mad-jack-easterby-texans/ "You don't know JACK -- The most influential Patriot you've never heard of" quote:To an outsider, they would seem an odd couple – the phlegmatic Bill Belichick and the effervescent Easterby. Yet ever since their initial conversation in 2013, when Belichick phoned Easterby out of the blue, they hit it off. "Patriots thankful for their time with Easterby" quote:The subject of Easterby has come up this week with the Patriots' upcoming matchup in Houston. This week, head coach Bill Belichick said his organization was grateful to have Easterby and lucky to have great leadership in the locker room to keep the ship afloat when the character coach left. quote:“He was really good for our football team, for the organization,” Belichick said this week. “He did everything I asked him to do and he had a good interaction, relationship with everybody in our building, from the support people, to the players, to the coaching staff and so forth. I learned a lot from Jack. I think we learned a lot from each other and we went through a lot together. So, he had a good, positive impact on our football team and on the organization.” Boy they sure seemed to hate the guy!
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# ¿ Jan 30, 2021 16:39 |
How do they all always make this exact same mistake "Obscure" personally revealing information, careful and thorough paragraphs instead of shitposts, always towing the line personally most beneficial to them Like presumably they think they can control the narrative through random tweets, and the next step is obviously "if this gets enough attention it'll help sway public opinion", but then they never think about "what happens if this gets enough public attention?"
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 05:13 |
Nick Caserio's Beaker face and sanpaku eyes staring intently into his phone as he repeatedly taps out "Jack Easterby is a true friend." "Nick Caserio was a necessary hire." "The Texans will -- nay, must -- succeed."
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 05:16 |
He's a goddamn prepper too. He has some sort of crazy doomsday fantasy where his dungeon stash of buckets of rice helps engineer his journey into becoming Warlord of the Balcones. What were the Patriots breeding in that front office?
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 05:18 |
"What fertile maidens await me in the doomed hellscape of the future?"
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 05:19 |
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Where is the prepper stuff? It's in his name. JC Prepper 98.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 05:45 |
Intruder posted:Can he really have used the initials of his college, the mascot of his prep school, and his year of graduation as a username for his burner? Worked for Comey.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 06:01 |
Move on, find a new slant boy.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 15:35 |
CannonFodder posted:Reverse googly eyes where the rest of the picture jiggles around but the pupils stay perfectly still. Yes, do this.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 18:02 |
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/texans/article/Texans-dismiss-executive-Kevin-Krajcovic-other-15926476.php Some more quote:The Texans have dismissed director of football administration Kevin Krajcovic, according to league sources not authorized to speak publicly.
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# ¿ Feb 5, 2021 22:25 |
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/30853055/sources-houston-texans-insist-other-teams-trade-deshaun-watsonquote:As speculation continues to swirl regarding Watson, the Texans have moved ahead by making sweeping organizational changes. This past week, they dismissed director of football administration Kevin Krajcovic, equipment manager Mike Parson and his staff and another longtime employee, Doug West.
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# ¿ Feb 7, 2021 17:11 |
remembering this from the original SI story... quote:Easterby also began occasionally addressing the team on the nights preceding games, turning the meeting room into his pulpit. But some of his efforts to relate to the majority-Black roster occasionally failed him; in some cases he even caused offense. During one Saturday-night meeting in 2019, Easterby, who is white and cites Martin Luther King Jr. as a role model, asked players to think back to when they were growing up “playing ball with Ray-Ray and Ki-Ki and them,” according to three people in the room for these meetings. Some saw the language as more of a misguided attempt to fit in—players often called Easterby a “try-hard.” But at least one person was bothered enough by what they saw as a use of Black stereotypes that they debated saying something to Easterby. (They decided not to take on that conversation with a game the next day.) A few weeks later, one of the sources says, Easterby used similar language again.
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# ¿ Feb 7, 2021 22:37 |
Declan MacManus posted:but why not just not sign and then get tagged and traded?? He would have much more control about where he goes with this route, since the extension had a no-trade clause allowing him to veto being traded somewhere he doesn't want to be.
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 02:33 |
One month ago:quote:https://texanswire.usatoday.com/2021/01/16/jamey-rootes-leave-texans/ Today:
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 17:14 |
Hunt11 posted:So how long until Easterby claims the ownership of the team for himself? In a shocking announcement, Cal McNair announces that he's adopted Jack Easterby. "The son I never had," he says with tears of happiness in his eyes. Three months later, McNair is found dead in his favorite sitting chair. His will entrusts the Houston Texans football organization to James “Jack” Harold Easterby IV.
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# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 17:22 |
Docjowles posted:I feel like this tweet from the article deserves to be pulled out to stand on its own All work and no prayer makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no prayer makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no prayer makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no prayer makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no prayer makes Jack a dull boy.
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# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 02:55 |
C-Euro posted:I'm somewhere between 32 and 33 and this dude is at least 40. I'm exactly the same age as you and I look 20, maybe 25 years younger than this guy in this picture. I almost can't believe that this is the same guy as this guy: It's like if he underwent some sort of... transformation.
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# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 03:55 |
lol the SBNation Texans blog is in full revolt. https://www.battleredblog.com/2021/2/11/22277878/its-jack-easterbys-team-now quote:The fanbase is also no longer beholden to the Houston Texans.
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# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 04:03 |
Yeah, let's focus on the failure of the Texans to do anything meaningful with the 3x DPOY and 5x All-Pro who nearly won MVP, a near-impossibility.
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# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 17:35 |
https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/02/12/what-jj-watt-parting-says-about-current-state-of-texans This article is funny because Orr is desperately trying to see the Texans situation in the best possible light, and he just simply can't: quote:I think if most of us try, we can see what the Texans are envisioning here. By tossing out everyone who is unwilling to swim upstream, or who merely expresses a contrary opinion, they are left with only a malleable lump of clay that they can fold to their liking. It’s a long-term bet on the power of collective will vs. the power of individual talent, which, if you’ve caught any of the last few Super Bowls, is a dicey proposition at best. Those who want to make excuses for Jack Easterby and Cal McNair will compare this to something like Bill Belichick releasing Ty Law; this happens in healthy organizations, too, they’ll say. Indeed, being a little unsentimental and calculating when it comes to depreciating assets is part of a franchise’s blueprint for long-term success. quote:But Friday is yet another in a sequence of days when we have all watched the Texans’ leadership group slowly squeeze the soul out of the organization. quote:The Texans are, like so many other teams, unwittingly cosplaying as an organization they’d like to imitate without any of the requisite foundational success, experience or relative cachet that is important for all of this to work. The Texans assume that they are one of 32 teams and that, regardless of their outward appearance, they’ll have access to players. And if they get players who all believe and think the same thing, they will somehow become, like the Patriots, something greater than the sum of its parts. quote:In Houston, what has happened under this current regime so far that has inspired an ounce of similar confidence?
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# ¿ Feb 13, 2021 19:47 |
wyoak posted:the idea was there would be more money for veterans, what actually happened is mid-level veterans got cut The big reason for this is that rookie contracts are really very long, so you could keep rolling the dice on rookies until you got some good ones, then sit on them for the remaining 3-4 seasons on their contracts, while cutting the ones who suck. The fix for this seems obvious? at least to my eyes -- make rookie contracts shorter, so that teams can't just churn through rookies nonstop and will have to sign veterans for stability.
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# ¿ Feb 22, 2021 23:34 |
Kalli posted:But yeah, rookie contracts should be like 3 years long at most. Figure out if they're good, then pay them what they're worth. This would also help the RB situation enormously.
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# ¿ Feb 22, 2021 23:44 |
Who was that player about a decade back on the Eagles who literally only ran in a straight line at the passer and racked up crazy amounts of sacks but was otherwise worthless on defense? It was back before Reid left the Eagles, when he was promoting nobodies to DC. I always think of that guy whenever I see "sources" grouse about players who play for their stats.
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# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 21:52 |
Grittybeard posted:This was in the middle of the wide 9 boom I remember. Connor Barwin maybe? Jesus I haven't thought of that name in forever. It was Jason Babin, who had 18 sacks in 2011 with the Eagles. Diva Cupcake posted:Was this Jason Babin? Yes! He had 12.5 sacks the previous season with the Titans with Jim Washburn. He went to the Eagles, Washburn came along, and it was a controversial coaching hire as I recall.
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# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 22:06 |
Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Tbf, if I was a DL coach and my DC/boss was a career OL coach, I'd be a bit ticked off too I looked into it a little bit and came up with this: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/07/07/former-eagles-d-line-coach-jim-washburn-i-was-the-anti-christ-in-philadelphia/
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# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 17:52 |
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# ¿ May 11, 2024 18:59 |
Not evidence (yet), but the actual lawsuit is much more detailed than what has been reported yesterday: https://twitter.com/JetsIslandIG/status/1372207189125914626
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# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 18:31 |