January 3rd was the last time the Texans played a football game. It was a game that the Texans tied with 18 seconds to go, only to give up 56 yards in those last 18 seconds and have the Titans kick a game winning FG as time ran out, ending a disastrous season that saw the Texans go 4-12. A season that started with the Texans giving a mega contract to QB Deshaun Watson, then firing their GM and HC, Bill O'Brien, 4 games into the season.
Not long after the Texans hired Caserio, rumors started spreading that QB Deshaun Watson was none too pleased about the process, and that he no longer wanted to be a part of the organization. It's speculated that Watson was promised input in the GM and HC searches by CEO Cal McNair, and that Caserio was hired with his input either ignored or never asked for. On Jan. 12, Texans Ring of Honor WR Andre Johnson put the Texans on blast, saying that nothing good has happened in that building since Jack Easterby came through the doors, and was in support of Watson "standing his ground". A couple of weeks later (Jan. 28), it became official that Watson was indeed requesting to be traded, despite signing a guaranteed $110,000,000 contract, and already pocketing a $27,000,000 signing bonus just 5 months prior.
Well, the Texans end up going in a direction that NO ONE saw coming. They hire a coach who has been coaching in the NFL for 27 years. In those 27 years, he's never been higher than a position coach. He's a guy that NO ONE has EVER had on their radar for HC, and he, himself, probably had no aspirations of ever becoming a HC, having been in the business for 27 years. That man, David Culley, hired on Jan. 27. Two days later the Texans announce that former NFL HC Lovie Smith will be their new DC.
2 days later (Feb. 12), the Texans announced a mutual parting of the ways between them and Mr. Texan himself, J.J. Watt. This was expected as the salary cap hit the Texans would take in 2021 ($17.5M), made no sense for them to keep him, and his dead cap for trading him or releasing him was zero. Watt, on several occasions towards the end of last season, showed his displeasure on several issues with regards to the Texans play on the field and to their commitment in practice. It was clear he was not too happy about the direction this franchise was going. He even apologized to Watson for a wasted season of his young career.
By mid March, March 16th to be exact, the 2nd atomic Watson bombshell hit. Word came out that famous Houston attorney Tony Buzbee was filing a civil lawsuit against Watson for alleged misconduct against women. By the end of the month, 19 civil lawsuits had been filed against Watson ranging from sexual misconduct to sexual assault. The lawsuits grew to 22 by April 5th, and by April 7th, endorsement deals Watson had with various companies including Nike, were being canceled or suspended.
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| Texans lose as time runs out |
A game winning FG, or in the Texans case, a game losing FG, that ricocheted off the upright and still went through, as time ran out. That started the off-season that would never seem to end.
4 days after that game (Jan. 7), the Texans hired their new GM, Nick Caserio. And like everything the Texans seem to do lately, it didn't come without controversy. Caserio is a guy the Texans have been after for years. In 2018, the Texans wanted to interview Caserio for their GM position. The Patriots, the team Caserio was with at the time, declined the interview, which was their right, due to the fact they were still in the playoffs. Instead of waiting another week or 2 for that to play out, the Texans instead hired Brian Gaine as their GM, and signed him for 5 YEARS!
18 months later, and with former Patriots character coach (whatever that means) Jack Easterby now on the Texans staff, the Texans fired Gaine. The day before that firing, Easterby attended the Patriots ring ceremony, to receive their rings for winning the Super Bowl, for which Easterby was apart of, and again, the Texans attempted to bring Caserio, still under contract with New England, to Houston. The Patriots then threatened the Texans with tampering charges, and they sheepishly backed away from their pursuit of Caserio. That left the Texans with no GM, which they eventually gave to Bill O'Brien.
That brings us to the never ending off-season of 2021, where the Texans are again without a GM, firing O'Brien 3 months prior. The Texans hire a search firm, Korn Ferry, for $600,000 to assist them in finding the right candidate for GM. CEO Cal McNair has reportedly told QB Deshaun Watson that he wanted his input on the search as well. The search firm apparently had a candidate, and the Texans were on the verge of signing him, when Easterby allegedly talked Cal into getting on a plane and finally getting their boy Caserio. As mentioned, 4 days after the off-season had begun, the Texans ignore the search firm, apparently get no input from Watson, who was on vacation at the time, and hire Caserio.
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| Andre Johnson - Ring of Honor |
Not long after the Texans hired Caserio, rumors started spreading that QB Deshaun Watson was none too pleased about the process, and that he no longer wanted to be a part of the organization. It's speculated that Watson was promised input in the GM and HC searches by CEO Cal McNair, and that Caserio was hired with his input either ignored or never asked for. On Jan. 12, Texans Ring of Honor WR Andre Johnson put the Texans on blast, saying that nothing good has happened in that building since Jack Easterby came through the doors, and was in support of Watson "standing his ground". A couple of weeks later (Jan. 28), it became official that Watson was indeed requesting to be traded, despite signing a guaranteed $110,000,000 contract, and already pocketing a $27,000,000 signing bonus just 5 months prior.
Meanwhile, the Texans are still looking for a new HC. Having fired O'Brien 4 weeks into the 2020 season, they were by far the 1st team that knew they needed a HC. By the end of the season, 6 other teams had HC vacancies. All 6 of those positions were filled before the Texans signed their new HC. And, of course, the controversy continued. Even though the Texans were the last team to get their HC position filled, there were still plenty of good candidates. At the top of the list was Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy, who the Texans weren't even planning on scheduling an interview with for some reason. Other top candidates included Bills OC Brian Daboll and Ravens OC Greg Roman.
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| HC - David Culley |
Well, the Texans end up going in a direction that NO ONE saw coming. They hire a coach who has been coaching in the NFL for 27 years. In those 27 years, he's never been higher than a position coach. He's a guy that NO ONE has EVER had on their radar for HC, and he, himself, probably had no aspirations of ever becoming a HC, having been in the business for 27 years. That man, David Culley, hired on Jan. 27. Two days later the Texans announce that former NFL HC Lovie Smith will be their new DC.
That FINALLY brings us to the end of January. Yeah, that's right, JANUARY!! All of this has happened in the first 4 weeks of the off-season.
Comparatively speaking, February is a lot slower. It took a full 10 days for the next big bomb to drop, and that bomb was long time President of Business Operations, Jamey Rootes, announcing his resignation. Rootes had been in that position for the Texans from the beginning of the franchise. It's reported that Rootes wasn't pleased with being left out of the GM hiring process, and that he did not like the direction the Texans were going under the leadership of new Vice President of Football Operations, Jack Easterby.
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| J.J. Watt |
2 days later (Feb. 12), the Texans announced a mutual parting of the ways between them and Mr. Texan himself, J.J. Watt. This was expected as the salary cap hit the Texans would take in 2021 ($17.5M), made no sense for them to keep him, and his dead cap for trading him or releasing him was zero. Watt, on several occasions towards the end of last season, showed his displeasure on several issues with regards to the Texans play on the field and to their commitment in practice. It was clear he was not too happy about the direction this franchise was going. He even apologized to Watson for a wasted season of his young career.
Like I said, fairly quiet in February. By the end of the month, Caserio was beginning to start his reshaping of the roster, and the cuts were coming fast and furious. The Texans weren't making any big noise in free agency. What they end up doing is signing a ton a players left over from the 2 big waves of free agency, mostly backups and special teams players, and most to 1 year contracts. This carried over into March.
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| Tony Buzbee - Deshaun Watson |
By mid March, March 16th to be exact, the 2nd atomic Watson bombshell hit. Word came out that famous Houston attorney Tony Buzbee was filing a civil lawsuit against Watson for alleged misconduct against women. By the end of the month, 19 civil lawsuits had been filed against Watson ranging from sexual misconduct to sexual assault. The lawsuits grew to 22 by April 5th, and by April 7th, endorsement deals Watson had with various companies including Nike, were being canceled or suspended.
Watson was still dead set on wanting out of Houston, and with the NFL Draft coming up at the end of April, even if the Texans were to give in and trade him, which I doubt they ever would have simple because of the cap hell it would have put them in, these growing legal issues made that an impossibility.
The Texans signed journeyman QB Tyrod Taylor, and then drafted QB Davis Mills out of Stanford, with their very 1st pick of the draft, which came in the 3rd round. That made it pretty clear that the Texans were preparing for life without Watson, as the cases against him continued to mount. Not only had 22-23 civil cases been filed, there was a growing number of criminal cases, in addition to those civil filings. Anywhere from 9-11 criminal cases are reportedly being investigated. So trading Watson away post-draft, where the cap hit would have been much less, is not an option either, if there's a chance he could be facing criminal charges and possible jail time.
The draft for the Texans was very underwhelming. It didn't help that they had no picks in the 1st 2 rounds, thanks to Bill O'Brien, but Caserio continues the seemingly willy-nilly giving away of draft capital. With the limited picks they had, they used their 1st one (3rd round), to draft the QB, Mills. Mills is a guy who's 4 year college career saw him play in just 13 games. Then they give up 3 picks, including 1 next year, to move back into the 3rd round to select a WR, Nico Collins, who hasn't played in an organized game since 2019 because he opted out of the 2020 COVID season. Then Caserio moves up TWICE to draft in the FIFTH round, giving up 3 more picks in total, to draft a 5th round LB. So, not a very impressive 1st draft, in my opinion, for Caserio.
With the draft done, the Texans are set to begin their voluntary off-season workouts. After the massive overhaul the Texans have taken this off-season, over 50 new players, including a new starting QB, an entirely new coaching staff, which means new systems and schemes, the Texans were going to need all of the practices they could get. And even with these workouts being voluntary, they really needed nearly everyone showing up. And to the Texans credit, they did have high attendance for these workouts.
There was no Deshaun Watson, of course. After the voluntary workouts, there was supposed to be a mandatory 2-3 day mini-camp in early June. This would be the last organized team activities until training camp started in late July. And because these workouts were mandatory, players who did not show up were subject to be fined by the team. This meant that if Watson continued to be a no show, he could start racking up fines from the Texans. Well, the Texans decide that they are going to cancel this mandatory mini-camp, saying that since they had a great turnout for the voluntary workouts, that they were going to let the players skip the 2-3 days of the mandatory workouts. Again, the Texans have had a ton of turnover, 50+ new players, new coaches, and new systems. Not that another 2-3 days would likely make much difference, but if you're banging the competition drum, like this new Texans regime has been since they've taken over, you probably need to have as much on field time as possible.
Canceling these workouts also meant the Texans could push back having to deal with anything regarding Watson. There would be no fines, and Caserio and Culley wouldn't have to constantly answer questions about it. So the Texans delay having to deal with all of that mess until training camp starts, where the Texans can then start fining Watson if he doesn't show, or Watson does report forcing the NFL to take action and likely putting him on the Commissioner's Exempt List. Because until at least these criminal charges have been addressed, Watson is not playing football.
With no more workouts or any kind of team activities remaining until the start of training camp (July 27), I think that finally wraps up an off-season that seemed like it was never going to end. Unfortunate that the Texans might be so bad this year, that the regular season could feel like it's never going to end as well. Ah, the life of a Houston sports fan.
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