What in the World is Going to Happen in Houston?
For those that have been reading this blog regularly, you may be expecting a breakdown of Sunday’s game as I normally blog about it after watching the All-22 film. After the miserable performance by the Houston Texans it would be fairly useless to attempt to articulate any valuable takeaways from the game. We could not run the ball against the Tennessee Titans. We could not stop the run (you’re welcome Derrick Henry). We could not pass the ball and our offensive line had one of the worst performances of the season. According to PFF, the Texans' offensive line surrendered 14 total pressures: 8 hurries, 4 hits and 2 sacks. Kenyon Green and Scott Quessenberry accounted for 12 of them. We could not do anything against a team that only completed 6 passes the entire game. Instead, I need to discuss the current state of the Texans front office, the locker room and the fanbase.
Let’s go back to 2021 when there was so much hope after the Texans hired Nick Caserio. Most fans felt that Nick Caserio had the scouting and personnel experience to turn this franchise around. While we have been losing games for most of the year, many fans still had faith we would improve in the future. However, the past few weeks has shaken my faith in the franchise (sorry Easterby, I understand losing my faith is blasphemous to you). Owner Cal McNair confirmed on a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) that hiring Nick Caserio was his idea. Some fans thought Caserio was Easterby’s choice but in reality, the only thing Easterby did was negotiate Caserio’s contract.
A few weeks ago, NFL Insider Aaron Wilson confirmed on an episode of the Texans Fan Battle Podcast that it was Cal McNair that stopped the hiring of Josh McCown as head coach of the Houston Texans and that Lovie Smith was a last minute decision. <div><small><a href="https://youtubeembedcode.com/de/" data-mce-href="https://youtubeembedcode.com/de/">youtubeembedcode.com/de/</a></small></div><div><small><a href="https://mgacasinoutansvensklicens.se/" data-mce-href="https://mgacasinoutansvensklicens.se/">malta casino utan svensk licens</a></small></div> While this seemed obvious to some fans, others believed Smith was a part of the conversation from the very beginning. Fans believed Smith declined to be considered for the head coach position because he wanted a level of control that Caserio was unwilling to provide. Therefore, some fans believed that Lovie was on the Texans’ initial list as a potential head coach because of the organization’s past dealings with Smith. In 2014 Lovie Smith was interviewed for the head coach position, but was overlooked in favor of hiring Bill O’Brien. It was widely rumored that Lovie Smith was asked to be head coach last year and he refused.
John McClain reported that they offered Josh McCown the associate head coach position after they initially interviewed him for the head coach position in 2020. McCown refused so he could continue coaching his son and to take some time off from the NFL. The Texans then gave the associate head coach position to Lovie Smith. Thus, the hiring of Lovie Smith as the head coach of the Houston Texans was the second time the franchise hired Smith as their backup choice for a position in the organization.
Most fans were dead set against having McCown as head coach due to his extreme lack of experience. While McCown played in the NFL for twelve separate teams, the highest level he has ever coached was high school. Virtually no fan wanted such an inexperienced person and as it turns out, neither did Cal. The optics to the national media were horrible. The Texans fired African-American head coach David Culley after only one year and Cal McNair did not want to hire a young, inexperienced, white head coach after Brian Flores accused both the Texans and the NFL of racial discrimination in the hiring process. That means that Nick Caserio approved of Easterby’s recommendation to hire Josh McCown and Cal McNair stopped this potential disaster from occurring. This by itself may not be incredibly concerning, but unfortunately there is much more to consider.
There were 12 trades made on Tuesday’s trade deadline, which was the most ever made in NFL history. Unfortunately, the Texans did absolutely nothing to improve their roster. This was not for a lack of trying as Nick Caserio was attempting to trade Brandin Cooks to the Dallas Cowboys.
Two sources directly involved tell me #Cowboys and #Texans discussed a potential trade involving WR Brandin Cooks until the final minutes before the NFL trade deadline expired. Draft pick compensation and the $18M guaranteed salary for Cooks in 2023 could not be resolved in time — Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) November 1, 2022
It was reported that Caserio was asking for a 2nd round pick. Brandin Cooks has performed quite poorly this season. Prior to this Sunday, sophomore wide receiver Nico Collins outperformed Cooks despite having 17 less targets. If Collins was not injured that might still be the case. Nonetheless, many fans believed that a 2nd round pick was far too high to acquire Brandin Cooks given his expensive contract and it seems the Dallas Cowboys agreed. The two teams simply could not reach an agreement by the trade deadline. While the fanbase was split on whether Brandin Cooks should be traded, Cooks made a vague and frankly childish tweet that seemed to suggest he was quite angry that he was not traded.
Don’t take a man’s kindness for granted. Covered for the lies for too long those days are done. Crossed the line with playing with my career ???? — Brandin Cooks (@brandincooks) November 1, 2022
Now, the Texans have an expensive underperforming receiver but also have a potential locker room cancer. Brandin Cooks has played for the New Orleans Saints, the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams before coming to Houston. In addition to the Dallas Cowboys the Green Bay Packers were also interested. If Brandin Cooks was traded yesterday he would have tied Eric Dickerson for being the most traded player in the NFL. Cooks previously complained about being traded so many times and threatened to retire, yet in the past few weeks he has liked several posts on Twitter that have proposed him being traded to several different franchises. It is clear Cooks wanted to go and was upset that he is being forced to stay in Houston.
While hindsight is 20/20 it is concerning that Caserio gave Cooks $18 million guaranteed dollars for the 2023 season. He has put the franchise in a position where the “best culture team mate” may very well negatively impact other players on the team.
In addition to Caserio and Cooks, there are concerns about Pep Hamilton’s ability to be the offensive coordinator. When Pep Hamilton was the OC at the Indianapolis Colts one of the complaints against him was that he would call plays that required quarterback Andrew Luck to hold on to the ball too long, despite having limited protection from his offensive line. Now, Pep seems to have overcorrected that problem. Davis Mills is the 5th fastest quarterback in terms of getting the football out. This has led to far more checkdowns than necessary and he has missed many wide open receivers.
Pep Hamilton has worked with Chad Pennington, Quincy Carter, Brooks Bollinger, Alex Smith, Brian Griese, Rex Grossman, Kyle Orton, Jay Cutler, Justin Herbert, Andrew Luck and now Davis Mills. However, the “pro-Pep” narrative only seems to talk about Justin Herbert and Andrew Luck. If we look into the past and simply look at the data we can see that at first Rex Grossman had a 66.4 QB rating, but the next year his rating dropped to 59.7. Chad Pennington dropped from a QB rating of 91 to a rating of 70.9. Andrew Luck dropped from a 96.5 QB rating to 74.9. Davis Mills dropped from a 88.8 QB rating to 81.9. The data seems quite clear. Pep Hamilton seems to actually make these quarterbacks worse the following year. Clearly this information was known to Lovie Smith and Nick Caserio and yet Pep Hamilton was promoted from the Texans’ quarterback coach to the offensive coordinator.
Now here’s the final issue that leads me to ask, “What in the world is going to happen in Houston?” Cal McNair has been trying to make amends with the fanbase. He was quite hands-off for the majority of his short tenure, but he has suddenly started engaging with fans and the media. He has signed autographs in training camp, answered questions from fans on Reddit and even grilled burgers for the public. It is clear he is trying to keep the fanbase happy. He made the decision to hire Lovie Smith based on the perception of the fanbase and the media. He recently offered a football jersey exchange to appease fans that have been upset with the recent turnover history with some of our favorite players (I still miss you, Nuk). Will he continue to make decisions to appease the fanbase even if it negatively impacts the product on the field?
While I understand many fans want to desperately draft a quarterback in the 2023 draft class, some analysts believe that the 2023 draft class is fairly weak. In addition to the questions regarding the talent level of these draft prospects, many analysts believe that putting any rookie quarterback under center will be disastrous due to the lack of talent on the roster. Personally, I believe the Texans should wait until 2024 to draft a quarterback and instead draft talented players like Will Anderson, Jalen Carter, Myles Murphy or Jaxon Smith-Njigba with the two 1st round picks the Texans have in this upcoming draft. If a quarterback is taken early the Texans can only draft one potentially elite player to help build up the roster. If Nick Caserio does not believe in any of these quarterbacks and decides to keep Davis Mills as the starter for one more season, will Cal override Nick and tell him to draft a quarterback?
While this is not a popular opinion by much of the fanbase, one strategy that rebuilding teams utilize is to build a complete team until you are a “quarterback away” from competing. This helps the franchise obtain better draft prospects and typically leads to long term success. This is a similar strategy that the Buffalo Bills used before drafting quarterback Josh Allen. However, in the short term the fanbase can become disillusioned. Will Cal McNair override Nick Caserio if Nick believes in executing the strategy to build the team before drafting a quarterback? Cal has already put his foot on the ground when it came to hiring Lovie Smith. Will Cal do it again to make the fanbase happy?
We simply don’t know and that’s why I’m asking, “what in the world is going to happen in Houston?”
Join us on tonight’s podcast when we will talk about Brandin Cooks, the trades that happened yesterday around the NFL, the future of the Houston Texans as well as a preview of the Thursday night game against the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles.
You can watch the podcast on YouTube or you can subscribe to our podcast on virtually every platform including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and iHeart.
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