Texans Expected To Hire Bills Exec Brian Gaine As GM

Ian Rapoport reports that the Texans are expected to hire Bills VP of player personnel Brian Gaine as their new GM.

• Mark Berman reports that the Texans are currently in negotiations with Gaine and “would like” to have a deal done by the Super Bowl.

Gaine has been the clear favorite the Texans’ job all along, so this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

The Texans made the decision to open the search for a new GM shortly after executive VP Rick Smith decided to take an extended leave of absence from the team in order to take care of his wife during her cancer treatments.

Smith has said that nothing has changed in regards to his position and he fully intends on returning to Houston at some point. However, Texans owner Bob McNair admitted that it’s possible Smith may not return to the team at a later point in time.

“Rick needs to take care of his family,” McNair said, via John McClain of the Houston Chronicle. “Hopefully, they’ll get good results this year. Some people have raised the question if Rick comes back at the end of a year, he’s going to have undue influence on the G.M. That’s not the case at all.

“Rick might not want to come back. We don’t know what Rick might do. That’s something we’ll discuss a year from now. The only concern is to take care of his family, and we’re not going beyond that.”

Gaine has ties to Texans HC Bill O’Brien, which could improve the odds of O’Brien remaining in Houston long term.

We’ll have more regarding the Texans’ GM job as the news is available.