The Worm Is Cast Out
REJOICE, HOUSTON FANS! THE BAD MAN IS GONE!
Jack Easterby was a weird preacher who somehow worked his way into the good graces of the Patriots and then Texans organization. I’m still not sure how. I’m still not sure how it happened. He just sorta started existing at some point, like he crawled out of the primordial ooze and took a seat at the table and gaslit everyone into thinking he was always there.
I honestly think it might be better for me to link a couple of articles written by people who know far more about the situation than I and will offer better takes. If you want a good recap of Easterby’s rise to power, the Texans Fan Battle page has a solid summary. The biggest thing I learned from that article was that Easterby was there for the Chiefs when Jovan Belcher shot himself, and he was picked up by the Pats for the Hernandez situation.
It’s not really clear how he went from team chaplain to infectious worm, but it clearly happened in New England first. He seems like he was a guy who was always there, forging relationships with players. He’s probably good at that. Lots of players are religious and a team priest would be a good person some folks could talk to. It seems though that Easterby parlayed this skill into having actual, institutional football power. What we don’t know is why. Why did the preacher get draft evaluation powers? It’s one thing to act as a spiritual mentor or have team BBQs and services. It’s another to ask this guy what he thinks about draft capital. I think Easterby is just a massive football fan and kind of a power-hungry nerd who likes control.
I’m going to assume we might get more information down the road on how Easterby managed to do all of this. The Texans organization was full of turmoil under Easterby and the leaks were constant, and many reports seem to point to Easterby as the leaker, using leaks as a way to control situations. Pretty much the standard power-hungry control freak kinda story you see teams have from time to time, usually regarding shitty GMs. Of course, Easterby wasn’t a GM, he was a fucking priest with the worst stand-up routine you’ll ever watch. It seems his attempts to put Josh McCown in the coach’s chair ended up being a dividing line this offseason between him and the organization. Even Cal McNair appears to have recognized that this was a very stupid idea. Easterby’s contract was up at the end of the year with rumors he would get dropped but he didn’t even make it that far.
We’ll have to keep our eye on this little snake now that he’s been set loose in the wild again. He’s probably still a good team chaplain, but he’s already proven himself untrustworthy and power-hungry, so any team that picks him up needs to install some serious anti-virus software and invest in better security clearances.
I’ll leave you with a write-up from a long-suffering Houston Fan, Rivers McCown, with a solid wider perspective on the matter than my chucklefuck ass ever would have. For now, rejoice, the worm is gone.
not celebrating till the ownership is changed.
Wow, that standup routine… just… I don’t… I always imagined him as an older man, exuding wisdom and warmth on the outside explaining why everyone cuddled up to him. Within 5 seconds of him opening his mouth, I wanted to hit him in the face repeatedly.
And of all the people I have ever heard attempt a Boston accent, that is FAR AND AWAY THE WORST. I think he took a few confessions and then threatened to make them public. That’s what I’m rolling with.
The worst part is as someone who grew up in churches like that one, my response was “Eh, I’ve heard worse.”
Oh man, I’m sure I’d regret saying this, but I would LOVE to hear those. Bad accents are hilarious.
I was about to ask why you used the red keep for a lord of the rings theme, but then realized it’s Rohan. We’re good here.
OK WHO IS JACK ESTERBAY I DONT FOLLOW THE TEXENS SO WAT THE ABLALUTE FUCK
There’s this newfangled thing called “Google”. You should check it out.
ok
why tho
I like that you have Easterby have a literal wormtongue. It’s a nice touch.
I’m going to venture the best team chaplains are the chaplains that you rarely hear about.
“i will draw you, worm, as poison is drawn from a wound”
Silly as it seemed to fans even from the get-go, Easterby was pretty clearly seen by the McNairs as some sort of key to unlocking the Patriot’s way to success in the NFL (ditto Bill O’Brien, though O’Brien at least had a few legitimate skins on the wall). And he was reportedly seen as something similar to other NFL teams as well, though I’m going to guess none were willing to give him the kind of role the Texans did. The Texans problems surely run much deeper than Easterby, but that he was put in the positions that he was to begin with says a lot about how poorly run so many parts of the organization are.
Easterby, by the by, was never ordained as a priest, though he did attend a Lutheran college (Lutherans being one of the few Protestant branches to use the title of “priest”). It does not appear that he is now involved in a branch of Christianity that uses the term, nor has he been ordained as a pastor or other leader by any Christian denomination or even individual church by all accounts. In fact, his college degree is in “sports management”… so one could argue that, educationally, he is better suited for the position that the Texans gave him than he is as a team chaplain. In practice, of course, his role and performance in it were utterly ridiculous.
I rather like how his Wikipedia picture is of him on a football field doing his best Brian Hoyer impression.
It’s fair to blame New England for a lot of things, but I’m not sure they deserve it for Easterby’s shift from chaplain to football guy. I follow that team pretty closely, and I’ve never heard of his involvement on the football side with the Patriots beyond some character analysis as part of draft prep (something that’s at least within the realm of logic for a chaplain to have some insight into). I certainly got the sense he was interested beyond that, and asked a lot of football questions, but unless I missed it, I haven’t seen anything suggesting he had football responsibilities there.
How he made the move over to actual football stuff with the Texans is something I can’t explain, and defer to other sources.
If I may split the difference, him having existed in New England led people to think maybe some Belichick smarts rubbed off on him. Same thing probably would’ve happened if he was a high-profile member of Sean McVay’s staff.
You need to change the panthers pick because cmc got traded to the 49ers
If I can make a suggestion for the next cartoon picks theme. I don’t know if you’re a big Scooby Doo fan, maybe maybe do you think you can do a Scooby Doo villain theme? Since it’s Halloween, I thought it would be something fun. Thank you.
or “classic monsters”! the mummy, creature from black lagoon, etc! i like this.
of course, this week suggests a tolkien theme further down the line.
Reading the names of the many many many people in the Texans organization that Jack Easterby is said to have run off in his pursuit of running the franchise (Andre Johnson, most notably), I’m struck by one in particular… Jamey Rootes. Rootes was the president of the Texans, running the business side of the team from before they even played a down until early 2021 when he “resigned”. Rootes was said to have strongly disagreed with Easterby on the hiring process that brought Caserio to the team and was known to to regularly clash with Bill O’Brien over O’Brien’s often hot-headed treatment of Texans staff members. Rootes was, by all accounts, well-liked by staff and fans alike. He was also a big champion of soccer in the Houston area and was the driving force behind the Texans’ promotional group bringing big international soccer matches to NRG Stadium and selling wads of tickets to them.
Rootes passed away at age 56 back in August, after a long battle with mental health issues (as his wife described it, his death was alleged to be suicide outside of official press releases). While it is not fair to place the blame on Easterby for this very sad situation, I am sure that working with Easterby and being allegedly pushed out of his long time job by the guy did Rootes’ mental health no favors. It may not be a coincidence that Easterby’s star began to fall with the Texans’ ownership after Rootes passed away.
As a Texans fan, I am happy he is gone, but I think the problem runs deeper into the organization.
Nick Caserio is probably going to save our franchise, he is doing a decent job so far.
Pep Hamilton and Davis Mills just isn´t it until we get a franchise QB we are not making the playoffs, especially considering how stacked the AFC is.
Meanwhile Iĺl be riding the Damien Peirce hype train… until he inevitably gets hurt.
FWIW, now’s a good time to tank in the AFC.
I didn’t realize that wherever Easterby goes, tragedy follows:
Chiefs: Murder-Suicide
Patriots: Murder, eventual Suicide
Houston: Death of Owner, Suicide of an Executive
And the dude keeps getting more power after these tragedies. If this dude ends up getting another NFL job, watch out.
This is perhaps the most disturbing thing I’ve read all day. I salute you!
NFL version of The Omen?
To be fair, the Pats took him specifically because of the Hernandez situation
I think he was hired because they think Pats’ success juice would ooze on them.