(SportsRadio 610) -- Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin covered a lot when visited with In The Loop on Tuesday.
The Playmaker endorsed Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy for the Texans’ next head coach, spoke against the idea of sitting Deshaun Watson these last three game with Houston out of playoff contention; and once again lambasted the DeAndre Hopkins trade.
It was an insightful interview with a three-time Super Bowl champion and a well-connected NFL source.
“Man, listen. I would want to rob off the tree that Patrick Mahomes is pulling his fruits off of,” Irvin said of Bieniemy. “I would want to take that guy that they have over there as the offensive coordinator and see if he could create a similar thing right there in Houston. And you know you have the guy you need at quarterback. You could put the pieces around him. Deshaun Watson can do a lot of the same things that we see Patrick Mahomes does, and that’s exactly what I would do.
“I would go get that offensive coordinator from the Chiefs that has been learning under that master Andy Reid for all of these years, and I’m going to tell him to do with (Watson) what he did with Patrick Mahomes. That’s exactly the avenue I would take.”
Watson and safety Justin Reid are two prominent Texans players who have already endorsed Bieniemy, according to reports and public statements.
Watson recently met with Texans chairman Cal McNair to give his input on the head coach vacancy, and Jason La Canfora at CBS Sports reported Watson advocated for Bieniemy.
Watson’s personal quarterback Quincy Avery jokingly suggested the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator for the Texans soon after Bill O’Brien was fired in October.
While NFL insider Adam Schefter reported search firm Korn Ferry, hired by McNair to help search for a head coach, has presented Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer as a strong recommendation, Bieniemy clearly has the support of credible voices, and perhaps the most important in Watson.
Speaking of Watson, what’s Michael Irvin’s opinion on load-managing the franchise QB through these last three games?
I made the case the Texans should at least consider, when and under what circumstances to play Watson, rather than to assume he will take every snap for which he’s healthy enough, as he did in Chicago last Sunday.
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“You don’t understand how hard it is to get out the stench of losing, and especially when you open the door and invite it in,” Irvin said at the suggestion of shelving Watson. “Like ‘come on, let’s be bed partners.’ And then you try to say, ‘stench, get out of my bed’ and stench won’t leave. It will not leave just because you said get out of my bed, after you invited it into your bedroom. So losing is not something you want to even start playing around with. And I’m afraid if you sit Deshaun Watson, that’s the mentality that everybody around will see and that stench will linger and you do not want that.”
Nothing drew a stronger reaction from Irvin than revisiting the Hopkins trade, which Irvin has intimate knowledge of with his relationship with Hopkins.
“I speak for a living. I can’t even put into words the ignorance and stupidity of doing something like that,” Irvin said. “It was the craziest thing ever. And to get back what you got back. There was nothing you could get back that was worthy anyway. It would’ve helped if you say, ‘give me two first rounders, or something else I can look forward to,’ not David Johnson. One thing, it was stupid to trade the best receiver in the National Football League. And then it was stupid what you got back for the trade.”
Listen to that interview here on ITL: