HOUSTON (AP) — The Houston Texans abruptly fired general manager Brian Gaine on Friday less than 18 months after he took the job.The team announced the move with a statement from team owner Cal McNair http://www.seahawksfootballauthentics.com/cody-barton-jersey-authentic , who said only that “while the timing may be unusual, this decision was made in the best interest of the organization in our quest to build a championship team.”Gaine was hired to replace Rick Smith in January 2018 after Smith took a leave of absence to be with his wife while she fought cancer.The Texans went 11-5 in Gaine’s first season in charge after he spent the 2017 as vice president of player personnel for the Buffalo Bills. This stint was his second with the Texans after he worked for them from 2014-16 as director of player personnel.Senior vice president of football administration Chris Olsen will run the team’s football operations while the Texans search for a new general manager.It’s unclear what led to Gaine’s dismissal. Though his first season was a success, Gaine had been criticized for failing to improve the team’s porous offensive line after Deshaun Watson was sacked an NFL-leading 62 times last season.Watson played every game in his second year after having season-ending knee surgery as a rookie, but he was hurt for a good part of the season while dealing with a partially collapsed lung and broken ribs from taking hit after hit.Gaine drafted Alabama State offensive tackle Tytus Howard with the 23rd overall pick in the draft, but some wondered if Howard was the right choice with other more seasoned linemen from bigger schools and more powerful conferences available.Gaine also attempted to beef up the line in free agency but faced criticism there after signing injury-prone left tackle Matt Kalil. A Pro Bowl selection as a rookie in 2012 after the Vikings picked him fourth overall, Kalil missed all of last season with a knee injury and sat out all but two games in 2016 with a hip injury. They don’t all come from offense, but all of the head coaching hires so far in this year’s cycle have something in common.And the watchdog group that promotes minority candidates to the NFL and provides lists of qualified candidates admits it didn’t expect to be 0-for-6 at the moment.Via Armando Salguero of the Gary Jennings Jr. Jersey , Fritz Pollard Alliance chairman John Wooten said the pattern so far has been stark.“I’m very much aware of that, yes,” Wooten said. “The thing we’re looking at, I’ll be very open and frank with you, I’m very much surprised at some of the hirings that have been done so far. Like anything else, different people like different things, so that’s what you have to deal with.“However http://www.seahawksfootballauthentics.com/phil-haynes-jersey-authentic , I feel that the searches in all places, they had diversity of interviews. You said, which we’re all aware, no minorities have been hired. We hope some will be.”The Dolphins and Bengals still have openings, and both have interviewed minority candidates as the rest of them did. Wooten made it clear the decisions of others didn’t put any pressure on the two teams with vacancies, but he’s holding out hope. He’s also as surprised as a lot of people that the Cardinals hired fired Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury, and wasn’t expecting Adam Gase to be recycled so quickly to the Jets.“Let me put it to you this way Ugo Amadi Jersey ,” Wooten said, “we thought there would be probably four [minority] possibilities particular teams would go for. The surprise, if you could call it that, was the Arizona hiring. That was a little bit surprising. I think what they were trying to do was, everybody wants the quarterback whisperer, right? There’s a lot of talk about the new offenses and so forth even though these offenses are not new in this league.“The other situation I was a little bit surprised in was the Jets hiring. Because when I sit and look at the fact Brian Flores coming out of New England. New England has dominated the AFC East over there. And Brian Flores would probably know about the Jets more than anybody.”Wooten was careful to say he thought Gase was a good coach, which is true.But the problem remains systemic. With the majority of head coaching hires going to offensive assistants http://www.clevelandbrownsteamonline.com/sione-takitaki-jersey , and the vast majority of those jobs being held by non-minorities, the lack of options in the pipeline will only exacerbate what is already a significant problem.