A rare determination
The conversation was quick, direct and hopeful in nature. • Twenty-three years ago, Brian Gaine went undrafted out of the University of Maine as a tight end from a relatively small school. Launching a professional football career appeared extremely unlikely. • Living in North Jersey, Gaine was determined to earn a shot in the NFL. He wasn’t quite ready to put football behind him after graduating with a degree in public administration.
So Gaine, the new Texans general manager, cold-called the New York Jets’ scouting department to request a tryout. Pat Kirwan, working at the time as Jets director of player administration, recalled the conversation and his first impressions of an earnest, serious young man seeking a toehold in the NFL.
“It’s a great story,” Kirwan said. “Brian pursued me and I really liked his approach. He was very realistic about his chances. He said, ‘All I want is a workout; you tell me if I’m any good.’
“I told him to come on over to the facility. He ran and he didn’t run very fast, but I liked him. I told him I’ll work you out in four weeks, put your best effort into getting faster. And he did. He improved a lot.”
A month later, Gaine upgraded his speed to the point Kirwan felt comfortable placing him on an emergency list in case any Jets tight ends went down injured.
On the second day of contact drills at training camp, the Jets lost two tight ends to injuries.
Kirwan dialed up Gaine, telling him: “Get over here as fast as you can.”
Gaine made the short drive over the George Washington Bridge. Hours later, the future boss of the Texans’ personnel department threw on a helmet and pads and was on the Jets’ practice field throwing his body around on the scout team.
“Brian was tough,” said Kirwan, now an NFL analyst for Sirius XM Radio. “He was good enough to keep around. I thought maybe the practice squad would be good for this guy. I knew his career would be short and he would probably never become a starter, but he just wanted to contribute and do his best.
“I told him toward the end, ‘You need to be in pro football, you need to be in personnel, you impress me.’ Bill Parcells liked him, too.
“I remember being out in the parking lot after a game and his father, who was from Ireland, was there. I would never stand around and have a beer with players and their families, but I had a beer with the Gaine family. I love those guys. I saw potential for Brian to become a scout because of how smart and conscientious he was. You could just see the diligence in the guy. He was humble. He didn’t expect to get signed. He just wanted some closure on his career, and he took off from there.”
Climbing the NFL ladder
Although Gaine never played in an NFL regular-season game, he forged a journeyman career spent on practice squads with the Jets and New York Giants and the Kansas City Chiefs, his last stop. Along the way, he gained valuable insight into the business of football.
Gaine landed a job as a scouting assistant with the Jets, learning from Parcells, Jets coach and general manager at the time, and personnel executive Dick Haley.
He later worked for Parcells with the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins.
Gaine came to the Texans in 2014 as director of player personnel under former general manager Rick Smith. Gaine left the Texans after the 2016 season to become vice president of player personnel in Buffalo before returning to Houston this year to replace Smith.
Pluck of the Irish
A former standout tight end at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J., Gaine comes from a blue-collar family. He’s the youngest of five brothers, the sons of Irish immigrants, Jim and Alice Gaine.
Two of his brothers are firefighters in New York. Another is a retired New York City police officer. And one is a St. Louis businessman and former Maine assistant football coach.
Besides his family, one of Gaine’s biggest influences and strongest mentors is Parcells. Parcells lauds Gaine for his intelligence, work ethic, organization and communication skills. He loves that Gaine is a self-starter who didn’t have to be told what assignments to tackle. He would dig into scouting players, spending hours in film rooms searching for hidden talent.
“Just having the opportunity to work under Bill was a great opportunity and I learned a ton from Bill about how the coaches mesh with the scouting end, how coaching meshes with the personnel end, how to build a championship roster, what those core positions are, how to evaluate through the eyes of what the coaches are looking for,” Gaine said. “But the most important thing I would say was learning about a football program, football culture and what that looks like. What it looks like in the locker room, what it looks like in the training room, what it looks like in the weight room.
“How to build standards in terms of how we look for players — the personal character, the football character, all those critical things that are maybe things you might not see on the film but are critical to the success of a player succeeding in an NFL environment.”
Gaine’s fight to make it as a player, if only on a practice squad, adds to his perspective.
Gaining a player’s insight
“I understand the culture of the locker room, the culture of the training room, the culture of the weight room,” he said. “I understand the calendar year as it relates to what the players go through. I feel like I have an understanding of what they deal with Monday through Friday as it relates to the grind and the process of preparing to play a game on Sundays.
“I also know what they go through physically and mentally as it relates to going through the full tilt of a season, what the offseason program is, what a training camp is like. So, it gives me a unique perspective from that standpoint.”
After years of being a lieutenant, Gaine is a general with decision-making power as he works in tandem with Texans coach Bill O’Brien. Gaine is tasked with reshaping a Texans roster in need of upgrades across the offensive line and secondary following a 4-12, last-place finish in the AFC South.
Praise from many corners
“I think very highly of Brian, I think that was an excellent hire,” said Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan, a former Texans scouting executive. “Brian has been an assistant general manager and a vice president of player personnel. You sit in that chair right next to the general manager and you have an idea of everything that the job entails. Until you actually sit in that chair, it’s a whole different story. I think Brian is going to do an excellent job.”
Gaine had been passed over several times for general manager positions. Now, he has the opportunity he’d always dreamed of as Smith’s replacement.
O’Brien and Gaine have quickly bonded through a shared work ethic and passion for the game. They have a lot of similar beliefs about players and how to run the program.
“We have a lot of the same philosophy as to how to build a football culture, a football team,” O’Brien said. “We believe in the same things. We were kind of, in many ways, brought up the same way in football, especially in the NFL relative to coach Parcells and coach (Bill) Belichick. So, there’s a lot of common language that we use and we talk all the time. We communicate really well.
“We don’t always agree on everything, but we agree quite a bit of the time as to how we see a player, how we want to set things up in the football program that we’re trying to put together. So, it’s been really good.”
Engaging personality
Veteran NFL agent David Canter has known Gaine for nearly two decades. Several agents said Gaine is extremely responsive with a quick answer on whether he’s interested in their clients and meticulous in gathering every nugget of information.
“Brian is everything you hope for when a team picks a general manager,” Canter said. “He’s a really great person. He’s a tremendous talent evaluator. He’s learned from some of the best guys in the league like Bill Parcells. You don’t find a lot of guys like Brian Gaine. The Texans got tremendously lucky with him. It’s a visionary hire. For whatever reason, he got passed over many times.
“Brian is not a guy who plays the politics game. He’s not a guy who will kiss the you-knowwhat just to get a job. He’s a refreshing guy. He’s industrious. He’s a straight shooter. He has a great pedigree. I’m excited for the future of the Texans. With him and Bill together, this will be a really good regime. It’s exciting.”
As Gaine begins the heavy lifting of trying to reload the roster through free agency and the draft while lacking first-round and second-round draft picks following trades last year with the Cleveland Browns involving Deshaun Watson and Brock Osweiler, there’s confidence in his skills to navigate the Texans.
“I think he’ll do great,” Kirwan said. “Bill loves him, we’ve talked about him many times. It’s a great combination. Brian is so ready for this. Why did Parcells love Brian? Because he knew he’d be in there working hard and paying attention and he’s smart.
“I think Brian is so well-prepared for this. He’s been welltrained. If you know his parents, this guy’s foundation is so rocksolid. You could see it when he was 21 years old trying to be an NFL player. I always felt like he was destined to work in an NFL front office.”
Brian Gaine was bent on succeeding in the NFL world one way or another. The Texans recognized that drive and made him their general manager