HOUSTON -- The theme of new Houston Texans general manager Brian Gaine's closing news conference after last week's NFL draft was "partnership."

A partnership between the Texans' scouts, coaches and medical staffs, but especially a partnership with coach Bill O'Brien.

Throughout the draft process, Gaine has been quick to note that he is not doing this alone, and that his work with O'Brien is a huge part of how the Texans are building the 2018 roster.

"Everybody coming together, working together hand-in-hand to achieve the best results," Gaine said. "But, I would describe it as a great team effort.

"Bill [O'Brien] spends a lot of time evaluating the players, too. We had the head start with the Senior Bowl, of course, with our coaches coaching in the game. To Bill's credit, he spends a lot of time evaluating the players, watching the tape, but as well as the coaches. Bill then [builds a] consensus with his coaching staff and then the two of us come together and we blend our vision for the player, the prospect."

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That has not always been the case. In recent years working with general manager Rick Smith, O'Brien did not have as much of a say over personnel decisions. While the pair said they talked every day, O'Brien frequently told the media he did not put the 53-man roster together and just coached the players he was given.

After Smith stepped away at the end of last season, O'Brien made it clear he wanted someone who would share the same perspective of how to build a roster. "I think the big thing for me ... is alignment, being aligned philosophically on what type of team we want," O'Brien said at the time. He got that in Gaine, who was hired in January to return to Houston.

Gaine and O'Brien have a history -- Gaine worked for Houston from 2014-17 before leaving to take a job as vice president of player personnel with the Buffalo Bills. During his first stint in Houston, he worked closely with the Texans' head coach. O'Brien credits the fact that the two were "brought up the same way in football, especially in the NFL relative to Coach [Bill] Parcells and Coach [Bill] Belichick."

"We have a lot of the same philosophy as to how to build a football culture, a football team. We believe in the same things," O'Brien said. "There's a lot of common language that we use and we talk all the time. We communicate really well.

"He's an easy guy to talk to. 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."

And why is that so important?

"Vision," Gaine said. "You share the same vision on how you want to build a team but also how you want to build a football program and a football culture, and equally that goes hand-in-hand with the types of players that you want to bring to your roster."

Together last weekend, the Texans filled several needs despite not having a draft pick in the first or second round.

"We're very much aligned football-wise," O'Brien said. "We don't agree on everything, but man, it's so comfortable to go into each other's office, throw the film on, let's try to see this player through the same set of eyes and talk football. It's been a really, really good hire for us."