Another front office option: Rick Smith

[Mr. Scot]

Someone previously (forget who) speculated on the possibility of former Texans GM Rick Smith as an option for the Panthers. Jourdan Rodrigue retweeted a story from well known sportswriter Dan Pompei about him today. That doesn't imply that he's being looked at, of course, but given his availability and the previous speculation, I decided to take a look.

Smith started out as a coach at the college level (Purdue, his alma mater) and wound up as an Assistant Secondary Coach in Denver in the late 90s.  In 2000, he jumped to an executive role as Director of Pro Personnel (Tepper wants someone with a pro background) during a very successful run for the Broncos.

In 2006, he got the GM job in Texas (Gary Kubiak had already been hired as head coach earlier in the year). Smith stayed in Houston for twelve seasons, overseeing the tenures of Kubiak, (briefly) Wade Phillips and the hiring of Bill O'Brien. At the end of the 2017 season, he left the Texans to take care of his ailing wife.  Although he was never technically fired, the Texand have moved on, recently handing full control of the operation to O'Brien.

Smith's wife passed away around a year ago.

As Texans GM, Smith's teams racked up a regular season record of 92-100 (3-4 in the playoffs). They had four losing seasons, two 500 years and six winning seasons out of twelve, making the playoffs four times out of those six.  They won three Wild Card Games out of four, but never won in the Divisional Round.

As with guys like Elliot Wolf and Allonzo Highsmith, no permission would be required to interview Smith, if it were so desired.

The Pompei tweet that Rodrigue retweeted is here...

Pompei's article is an emotional one, and a good one.

Is Smith a possible option for the Panthers? Unknown. Would he make a good GM?  Also unknown.

It'd make for a good story, though.

[Jared Patterson]

Please no, how did we go from Colbert, Caserio to freakin Rick Smith. Im starting to actually be terrified

[TheMostInterestingMan]

How close is the Texans stadium to Baylor? That’s really the only information that actually matters. 

[t96]

Prepare yourselves for Coughlin to get an official role in our FO.

[Panthercougar68]

Y’all act like there are only 32 people that can be a GM type role.

We will have someone new going into 2021 that people have never thought/heard of.

I fully believe Dan Morgan will be here next year.

[MMA]

Can we quit talking about guys that we are never getting? 

[Waldo]

Wow, this is going to crap amazingly fast.

[panthers55]

Hurney is here to stay. The sooner you come to that realization the less painful it is.

[Waldo]

With Hurney's body of work, it's only a matter of time before he is fired again. One year or five, it'll happen. It really let's me know all I need to about Tepper and the direction of the team. Still, this is the move where the team could make the biggest improvement in getting better so I wouldn't bank on it going away until he does, again and hopefully for good. 

[Snake]

1 hour ago, panthers55 said:

Hurney is here to stay. The sooner you come to that realization the less painful it is.

Like the prostate exam.