What basis other than conjecture do you have for either (both)?
Do you have a shred of anything resembling evidence to say McNair overrode the HC & GM on either occasion?
Guesses are fine, right up until you treat them as fact.
I don't know about the Clowney pick. We could speculate based on "best player in a generation" media hoopla + South Carolina Gamecocks connection, but that is just assumption.
However, I do believe Sean Jones. I've heard his perspective several times and it has never waivered in its consistency. He was being interviewed in 2001 to be a capologist for Casserly. They asked him who he thought should be drafted, and his choice was Julius Peppers. Jones told them not to worry about a QB until they had everyone else in place, but they needed a "face of the franchise" according to McNair himself.
This goes along with everything that I have heard and have perceived about the early Texans organization. As Vinny said, it was a marketing company with a football division. Carr had the chiseled look, good family background, and was a posterboy for the new franchise. Heck, Carr has alluded to it on NFL Network, who now employs him as an analyst. He made a cryptic statement awhile back that appearance was more important than substance regarding why he was the first overall pick. In hindsight, he believes he was fed to the wolves and would have benefitted greatly by sitting a year and learning how to be a pro.
I have no reason to doubt it. Occam's razor philosophy applies where the simplest explanation is most likely correct, especially when so many parts fit together to support it.
That said, I'm not going to roast McNair for something 15 years ago when he was a noob owner.
Ed Reed was a McNair decision plain and simple
I agree completely and have never deviated from this perception. Between his own press conference, the owner's jet being sent to pick up Reed and deliver him to Houston, and Wade's comments about not being in the decision loop, I have no doubt that McNair was directly involved. And it's still recent enough that he deserves to be roasted.
However, I still think this is a boardroom front office and not a dictator situation where McNair is micromanaging roster decisions (i.e. Jerry Jones). Rick Smith does not carry enough weight to be held accountable, which is most likely why he stayed when Kubiak was fired. This roster was more of a reflection of Kubiak & Co. than it was Rick Smith.
