Certainties in life ... death, taxes, and the Houston Texans searching for a new head coach at the end of a season.
Yes, it's true, the Texans will conduct their 3rd straight head coach search in as many years as the latest, Lovie Smith, has been fired after 335 days as head coach. That's 15 days shorter than David Culley's stint the year before. What's just as amazing is that GM Nick Caserio, about to start his 3rd year as Texans GM, will be hiring his 3rd head coach. Unprecedented that a GM gets that many opportunities to hire a 3rd HC, never mind in 3 consecutive years, but here we are.
I don't know if Caserio knew about the Houston Astros and the similar situation they were in when former owner Drayton McClain left that organization in shambles before selling the team to Jim Crane, or the Astros plan to suffer through losing seasons in order to rebuild the organization, but that's similar to what the Texans needed to do. The Astros hired Bo Porter to be their manager through all the dark times until they could start getting it turned around, then hired A.J. Hinch to make them relevant again and take them over the top. This is the approach I thought the Texans were taking when they hired David Culley. He would get them through the tough seasons, deal with the media through all the losing, then when it was time to go to the next level, they'd bring in their version of Hinch. But after a 4-12 season, it seems Culley and Caserio got on different pages of the playbook, and Culley ended up being let go after 350 days on the job.
So in 2 full seasons as Texans GM, Nick Caserio has already been through 2 head coaches. In the next couple of weeks or so, he will be hiring his 3rd HC to start his 3rd year as GM. There's not going to be a 4th for Caserio, not as a Texan, so whoever the next Texans head coach is, this can not be a bridge or Bo Porter type HC. He's going to have to be their A.J. Hinch, and this organization is going to have to start rising now. The problem with that is, they still don't have the talent on the team to start making a move. Caserio's 1st 2 drafts have been a lot more miss than hit, though his 1st one was limited with no 1st or 2nd round picks. Last year, with a full arsenal of picks, there were some hits with guys like Dameon Pierce and Jalen Pitre, but injury risks were ignored, especially high in the draft with Derek Stingley taken 3rd overall, and who missed the last 8 games of the season due to injury. With another full arsenal of picks, including the 2nd and 12th overall, Caserio has got to start hitting some triples and home runs with more of these picks. And who they have as QB will play a big role in whether they start moving this ship off the ocean floor or not, because Davis Mills isn't the answer.
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| Lovie Smith |
Yes, it's true, the Texans will conduct their 3rd straight head coach search in as many years as the latest, Lovie Smith, has been fired after 335 days as head coach. That's 15 days shorter than David Culley's stint the year before. What's just as amazing is that GM Nick Caserio, about to start his 3rd year as Texans GM, will be hiring his 3rd head coach. Unprecedented that a GM gets that many opportunities to hire a 3rd HC, never mind in 3 consecutive years, but here we are.
A brief recap, the Texans fired HC Bill O'Brien 4 games in to the 2020 season. O'Brien was also the GM at the time. The Texans hired Caserio as GM, then Caserio brought in David Culley to be HC. Culley had been in the NFL for 27 years, never moving any further up the coaching chain than that of a position coach, thus he was never on anyone's radar to be a head coach. Yet the Texans give him the keys to the franchise. After a 4-12 season under Culley, the Texans fired him after the 2021 season and conducted another search. This one may have been more messed up than the last one as then VP of Football Operations, Jack Easterby, was pushing former NFL backup QB, Josh McCown, who had absolutely no coaching experience at any level. Easterby was actually pushing for McCown the year before as well, but now it was getting serious as McCown was a finalist for the position.
The Texans also interviewed former Dolphins HC Brian Flores. Flores then informed the Texans that he was filing a lawsuit against the NFL for racial discrimination. The Texans were pretty much forced into not hiring him after that, and because of how late they waited to make a hire, were pretty much left with McCown, an inexperienced white guy. So it would look really bad to hire him in the midst of a racial discrimination suit. So in desperation, the Texans asked Lovie Smith, who was their DC at the time, if he wanted the job and he took it. And after a 3-13-1 season in 2022, he was let go hours after the final game last Sunday. So when the Texans kick things off next fall they will do so with a 4th different HC at the helm in as many seasons. O'Brien-2020, Culley-2021, Smith-2022, new HC-2023.
When Bill O'Brien was fired, he left the Texans organization in shambles. Not only did he slowly get rid of playmakers on both sides of the ball, but star players the likes of DeAndre Hopkins and J.J. Watt eventually got traded or didn't want to be a part of it any longer. Dumb trades robbed them of draft capital, and it didn't help that QB Deshaun Watson was having his issues. So when Caserio got here, this ship had sunken lower than the Titanic.
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| Bo Porter |
I don't know if Caserio knew about the Houston Astros and the similar situation they were in when former owner Drayton McClain left that organization in shambles before selling the team to Jim Crane, or the Astros plan to suffer through losing seasons in order to rebuild the organization, but that's similar to what the Texans needed to do. The Astros hired Bo Porter to be their manager through all the dark times until they could start getting it turned around, then hired A.J. Hinch to make them relevant again and take them over the top. This is the approach I thought the Texans were taking when they hired David Culley. He would get them through the tough seasons, deal with the media through all the losing, then when it was time to go to the next level, they'd bring in their version of Hinch. But after a 4-12 season, it seems Culley and Caserio got on different pages of the playbook, and Culley ended up being let go after 350 days on the job.
So after another debacle of a HC search, the Texans landed on 64 year old Lovie Smith. And with the way it all came about, there's no way anyone could think Lovie was anything more than another bridge coach, a Bo Porter if you will, until the Texans started righting the ship with some talent. During Smith's tenure as HC, the Texans went 3-13-1, and it looked as though players there from the season before were not getting any better. In fact, several looked to be regressing, in particular QB Davis Mills. So at the end of this of this season, Smith was let go.
For the Texans, that's 2 minority head coaches that were hired and then fired after one season, in back-to-back years. And of course, because Culley and Smith are minorities, the media is having a field day throwing the race card on the Texans. The Texans aren't even the 1st team to have consecutive one year and done coaches. In 2015 the 49ers hired Jim Tomsula, fired him after the season, then in 2016 hired Chip Kelly and fired him after the season. Tomsula and Kelly are both white so nobody cared that they were one and done in back-to-back seasons. But that's the double standard world we live in. Not in consecutive seasons, but both the Jaguars and Browns have had 2 one and done head coaches in the last decade. So, it happens. And it's happening in Houston.
To be fair to Lovie Smith, you can't blame him for the shape this organization is in. They are a team with not a lot of talent on either side of the ball. Vince Lombardi in his prime wouldn't have made much difference with this Texans team. But Lovie knew that when he took the job because he was the DC last year under Culley. He also wore the DC hat this year, and in those 2 seasons with Smith in charge of the defense, the Texans defense has been near the bottom both seasons. Again, though, not a lot of talent on this team. Still, the last 8 seasons that Lovie Smith has been a head coach, including his 1 year in Houston, 2 in Tampa Bay, and 5 at Illinois, he hasn't had a winning season in any of those 8. In fact, add in his 9 years as HC of the Bears and for 17 seasons as a HC in college and the NFL, and Lovie has just 5 winning seasons. Even if you take out his 5 seasons at Illinois, it's just 5 winning seasons in 12 years. Do you know how many winning seasons Bill O'Brien has? That would be 5 in 6 years and change.
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| GM - Nick Caserio |
So in 2 full seasons as Texans GM, Nick Caserio has already been through 2 head coaches. In the next couple of weeks or so, he will be hiring his 3rd HC to start his 3rd year as GM. There's not going to be a 4th for Caserio, not as a Texan, so whoever the next Texans head coach is, this can not be a bridge or Bo Porter type HC. He's going to have to be their A.J. Hinch, and this organization is going to have to start rising now. The problem with that is, they still don't have the talent on the team to start making a move. Caserio's 1st 2 drafts have been a lot more miss than hit, though his 1st one was limited with no 1st or 2nd round picks. Last year, with a full arsenal of picks, there were some hits with guys like Dameon Pierce and Jalen Pitre, but injury risks were ignored, especially high in the draft with Derek Stingley taken 3rd overall, and who missed the last 8 games of the season due to injury. With another full arsenal of picks, including the 2nd and 12th overall, Caserio has got to start hitting some triples and home runs with more of these picks. And who they have as QB will play a big role in whether they start moving this ship off the ocean floor or not, because Davis Mills isn't the answer.
The list of candidates they've already requested interviews for is encouraging as all are legitimate candidates. So it appears they are finally going to get serious about this and try to bring in the coach of the future. The problem is, some of these guys are in the playoffs and interviews can't be conducted until they are out. That could be upwards of another month until after the Super Bowl until some of these guys could be hired. The last 2 head coach searches had the Texans being one of the last teams to fill their head coaching vacancy, putting them in desperation mode when things went awry. They can't let that happen this time around, again unless the guy they want is in the Super Bowl. There's currently 5 teams with head coaching vacancies, which includes the Texans.
So it's do or die time for Caserio. He has to get the head coach pick right, and then he has to get the draft picks right, or the Texans may be, at the very least, looking for another GM in 2024, and who knows if that guy would want another head coach or not?
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