Author: /u/bingmyname

1. Demeco Ryans- don’t really have any strong red flags with Ryans but the biggest drawbacks are that a) the 49ers defense was really good before he got promoted and he won’t have that same luxury of talent here b) he’s a defensive head coach.

Counter: First of all it’s not easy to maintain a top defense in multiple years. Even if you’re given talent you have to keep guys bought in, constantly adapt and change to new trends on the other side of the ball, teach and grow new players (Hafunga for ex.) and then on top of that actually make the scheme BETTER. Bosa said he’s the best defensive coach he’s been around. And yes that includes over Saleh. You can’t discredit Ryans for having talent on his team. He’s a teacher, schemer and leader all in one. As for him being a defensive HC, this is the biggest real concern. However he’s got plenty of connections to the Shanahan and Kubiak trees. He can get a bright mind on the offensive side of the ball and develop a line of guys who can take the reigns if the OC gets poached. Not only this but they call the LB the QB of the defense. I think you need to have some sort of awareness about offenses in order to be a great LB, which Ryans was. .

1. Shane Steichen – Again hard to find red flags with this guy. The only thing I got is that sometimes I watch and wonder if his scheme can be consistent or be sustainable. He’s got plenty of talent to work with here but sometimes a good bit of the big plays, that talent does in fact make a play rather than them being schemed open. Also when defenses start to figure out a balance with this 2 high shell stuff so their run defenses stop suffering, can he adapt his scheme again?

Counter: Steichen is calling particular plays because he’s knows the talent he has on the field. He trust his guys to win their matchups and trust Hurts to get it to them and it works well because they are dialed up at the right times. As for consistency, he’s had success with Herbert and then took on the challenge in growing Hurts and succeeded. It’s no accident wherever he’s gone the offense has gotten better. Two very different QBs shows his flexibility and ability to scheme and build the system around players. Even though similar things were said about peps ability to coach QBs, this is different because Steichen has called plays and been successful at it independently of any superior talent or play calling coach above him. I trust him to adapt because of his proven flexibility.

1. Gannon- This is the “boring” hire many people would prefer not to have but would in the end be ok with. Only real red flag is that his run defense is not very good. He has the talent on the DL and in the LB position unlike what we had and unlike Ryans, who coached a top run defenses and pass defense, his run defense still hasn’t been good. He’s also a defensive minded coach.

Counter: I think he’s sacrificed a bit of the run defense willingly in order to maintain a stellar pass rush and pass defense. The offense was putting up points for them so you’re not going to run the ball when you’re down 14 points. That means you can’t really take advantage of the run game and resort to passing against a team that had a league leading 70 sacks- the next team isn’t even close (Chiefs at 55). Complain about his aggression all you want but back to back top 10 defenses and a 70 sack season ain’t easy. Obviously adjustments need to be made for the talent level here but that goes for any candidate. It’s about evaluating what they do with their talent and the production they get and how sustainable they’ve been able to get it. Getting talent is the job of the GM not the coach.

I’m seeing a ton of nonsense right now about how the Texans are scaring away candidates in this coaching cycle. Not true. First let’s address the Cowherd nonsense.

1. This article clearly states that he “likes the brain trust in Houston”:

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/sports/jeff-duncan-can-the-sean-payton-sweepstakes-end-with-a-win-win-well-soon-find/article_6e38aa71-95cc-5f86-b023-c13f879efedb.html

1. Let’s just use a little bit of logic. Yes Cal inhereted the team but to say he’s not interested or doesn’t care after seeing how he’s tried to win the fans back and how much the Texans have tried to change perceptions in the past year is just ignoring the evident. Asking Cal to have all the answers and be some genius is completely ridiculous. That’s why he’s actively trying to hire people who know football better than him to fix the mistakes. So either Cowherd just made that up, he’s referring to a different team or Payton is just a jackass.

Now I’m also hearing the idea that Johnson went back to the Lions because the Texans and others were not appealing enough and it’s a bad sign for the Texans.

I could swear these narratives come from people who love to be negative. Lions insiders have been saying Johnson wanted to stay with the Lions all along but getting interview experience for next year is a good opportunity. He should want to see what he can do with that young promising group because next year, they’ll probably be in the playoffs rather than him having to wait while building up a rebuilding team. And making this about the Texans is just silly considering that there were several relatively normal franchises he could have went to.

Let’s stop the doom and gloom and wait until we actually see what coach ends up here. I don’t even expect to have Payton and I expected Johnson to go to Carolina for about a week so this isn’t hopium or copium lol, it’s just not being obsessively negative, which I cannot stand.

Let’s hear them. I’ll start with mine and I really only have 2:

1. Shane Steichen as HC and he builds his own staff. Then in free agency we get a top class veteran center, a guard that can give Green healthy competition, maybe some defensive pieces and any offensive pieces Shane has his eyes on. Draft either Young or Stroud, doesn’t matter Steichen can maximize either one. You may trade for a WR if necessary.

2. Demeco Ryans as HC, someone like Slowik as OC. Same free agency objectives, maybe a bit heavier on defense. In this case I’d think Stroud would be perfect for that WC scheme and because of his frame, a safer pick overall.

Keeping it simple would probably be best for the Texans in the long run. No need to get Payton for picks or to trade up for any QBs or none of that. Get aggressive at getting better and just be quiet with the drama for the rest of the season. Prayerfully we get Metchie back, Mills continues to make strides forward and all is good and finally NORMAL in Houston.

I’m just assuming at this point that if we do take a QB it’ll be Stroud but it doesn’t matter which QB is starting next year, the point still stands.

We have a serious problem at the WR position. There’s no one in that room that would even be WR2 on most other teams. Evaluating them independent of QB play is possible and in doing so it reveals a glaring weakness.

Cooks should be gone this off season. He quit on the team and was not very good regardless. Collins is still trying to get better but he spent too much time injured and was inconsistent. He was raw coming into the season and I don’t think it’s wise to expect a big leap from him until he actually does it (seriously this year has taught me to stop doing this). Metchie (get well soon) has never played a down in the NFL and it will be a year since he’s played football assuming he’s even ready to go for the next season. We also just don’t know how good he’ll be. The rest of the receivers are at best WR4-5 depth. Don’t try to convince me otherwise or else I’ll think you’ve been mixing drugs in your kool-aid.

That being said, I want us to stop expecting to add just one piece in the later rounds will really be impactful. I’m sorry but no, adding Jalin Hyatt to a bad receiving core does not help Stroud much. Those speedsters, unless they’re running a full route tree and get established quickly, are better off as complimentary pieces, meaning I wouldn’t expect the offense to be much better by just adding a guy who hasn’t shown much. I’m not trying to pick on Hyatt either. It’s just a popular one I’ve seen.

I think many people want to go after MHJ next year and that’s fair, I do too, but I need groundwork NOW. Get a security blanket TE and find a WR2 for all I care but don’t just add one or 2 insignificant pieces and expect Stroud to do well. I don’t care if you have to trade for one or if you use the second 1st round pick on a WR, just get someone reliably for Stroud and increase the chances of this teams weapons helping him.

PS. I like QJ but taking him at 12 is dangerous. He’s raw af and won’t really get open in the NFL which means you need to rely on a coordinator to scheme him touches and/or ask your ROOKIE QB to trust throws to another rookie who isn’t open… Doesn’t seem ideal to me tbh.

TLDR WR corps bad pls fix

The first thing that must be addressed is the coaching staff. We’ve heard reports about Lovie potentially being gone, about him staying, etc. I think ultimately he will stay but change OCs. Not what I want necessarily but that’s not what this post is about. I think with recent reports and looking at the season as a whole plus not wanting to go through the coaching cycle again, we will retain Lovie for another year and find an OC.

Secondly, we’ve been arguing over if Nick will pick Bryce Young this whole time. However, I think Nick will not be able to shake his concerns on size and will instead opt to draft CJ Stroud. He’s a great thrower of the football, has proven he can extend plays and use his legs and fits well with a West Coast scheme, which many teams are running. He will need to prove he has the football IQ and can improve on going through reads but if he can, he’s a much safer pick than Young because of his size/frame but also elite accuracy. Caserio also values production so there’s little chance he’s going to pass on Stroud to pick Levis, especially if they don’t trade back.

These are 2 predictions I’m becoming more and more confident in. I’ve tried to remove so hopium and you should too. Try to think how Nick would think, based on everything he’s said, the situation and everything he’s done.

TLDR; Texans may not fire Lovie but fire Pep. McCown is an interesting candidate for the OC position if that’s the case because not only does he have the necessary knowledge but he’s also got a relationship with the Texans already while other young OC prospects may not want to work under Lovie. This is just a possibility, not what I’m saying will happen or want to happen.

Let me be clear, this is not what I’m advocating for. I like McCown but I don’t particularly like taking more risk at this point in the rebuild.

However, with reports about the infatuation in the last hiring cycle and McNair having to be the one who said no, it’s possible that McCown is still on Caserio’s list… but maybe not as HC.

The case for Lovie Smith:

I think it’s very possible that we keep Lovie Smith around as head coach. Yes we’ve won less games but many of these games were winnable if the offense would be at least halfway decent. Lovie doesn’t have the personnel to fully run his scheme and Caserio knows that better than any of us. However, he’s coached up the secondary to an adequate degree and all the young defensive players are trending in the right direction. Lovie has also gotten enough fight out of the team to occasionally punch above their weight. But really what might save Lovie is that the Texans wouldn’t want to fire 2 coaches in back to back years as one and dones- especially not black coaches. Also McNair apparently really liked Lovie and wanted to keep him so I’m not sure if that’s changed yet.

The Case to Fire Pep:

You could argue that Pep also lacks weapons but the problem is 2-fold- the first being that he hasn’t been able to adjust nor adapt to anything. For example, the OL is bad but the problem gets compounded because defenses just send blitzes down the middle with no worry of Pep attacking spaces where the blitzes come from. Now defenses are teeing off on 3rd downs, obvious passing situations and any formation that isn’t an obvious run formation, which Pep also has a habit of showing. He also hasn’t schemed to Mills’ abilities to process, instead constantly spamming quick passing games concepts that take away cerebral abilities from the QB. This has been put on tape over and over again making the offense fairly predictable and 1 dimensional. He also failed to get Collins more touches early on when it was clear that he was better than Cooks this season. He’s hurt the development of a lot of players with his lack of ability to adjust and even DP is carrying his run game. The second is that he hasn’t shown much to justify wanting to keep him. His best trait is that he can in fact game plan but after the first half of falls apart. If he just ran a normal passing scheme I think there would be a legitimate argument to keeping him but his passing game is worse than TK’s and it goes beyond the roster, it’s about how he’s scheming and his inability to address weakness whatsoever. There’s been very few bootlegs and rollouts, no attacking blitzes other than with screens and most of his play calls center around run, screen, slant, out and comeback. He’s even now using Driskell to make up for his play calling inadequacies. It’s hard to trust Pep with a new QB and new weapons.

This is where Josh McCown could make his entrance. Not many young guys will be willing to come work under Lovie who has insisted on how he wants the offense to be ran and could potentially be fired next year if things don’t work out. Not exactly the most promising job prospect when there will be more attractive offers around the league, speaking from the OC perspective. McCown by the way, is certainly qualified. Not only has he seen just about every offense but he’s done a bit of play calling, coached up other players, sat in game plan meetings and more for years. He’s got the knowledge that any offensive assistant would have and more because he’s also played the game. He wouldn’t need the HC intangibles even though some suggest he does have them, just the knowledge he already has. Not only does he have the knowledge but right now, he’s breaking down various offenses, understanding them and potentially stealing the best concepts from around the league. Unlike Pep, he also understands what he calls “connected play calling”. That’s building drives with plays that look similar to keep the defenses off balance, which Pep has not done. McCown is an interesting prospect for OC and the Texans already have that infatuation. We’ll see but I think this is a possibility to look out for.

Cal has clearly been looking to reestablish a connection with the fan base and really wants to turn the narrative around. With that being said, he’s looking to get back to winning football or at least make tangible progress towards it. Clearly, we have not done a good job of that. It’s time for Caserio to finally bring in a coach he believes in and stop with the dysfunction. This is make it or bust. He needs to do good due diligence and to get the HC he believes can be here for a long term. This situation is only getting more attractive with the HC having more cap, tons of picks and perfect position to pick a promising QB whenever he should choose. Once Caserio makes his decision on who should be coach, he needs to get active in FA and with trades and start building this team. It’s embarrassing being a Texans fan right now and that shouldn’t be the case in a football state.

My favorite candidates right now: Shane Waldron (Sea OC)- great coaching tree and experience. Proven and tangible results on the field for more than just a flash in the pan.

Demeco Ryans as HC and potentially Slowik as OC- same as Waldron although less years on the coaching side.

Both of those options seem like high quality options but aren’t the only options. I imagine Colts, Broncos and Panthers will all be in the race. Houston should be the most attractive based on assets.

EDIT: People are saying stuff I never said. I didn’t say his seat was hot. But when you don’t improve year over year and have botched 2 coaching hiring processes then yes you start to have a bit of pressure that you need to get things moving forward. That’s what I mean by a little warm. In no way am I saying he will be fired soon. Relax guys.

We might not be able to get off of Lovie but there’s a real possibility that Hamilton is gone. With that being said I’m starting to look at OC options. One guy I’ve found is Slowik, who’s the #1 offensive guy behind Shanahan with the 49ers. He’s just the passing game coordinator right now so bringing him over as OC is fair. Of course he’s have to want the job but who would turn down the opportunity to work with Young and fresh new receivers and potentially be the next HC here as well? Anyone who’d take the job would be in good position to elevate their career. We just need to let them have their guys.

First of all let’s recognize why we were hopeful to begin with this off-season to put things into perspective. It’s not that we expected to be good, but we all expected to be competitive and fight more than we did last year. Many fans had us in the 4-6 win range which is technically still possible but not how we imagined.

Coaches- The coaching search was a disaster but when we landed on Lovie and Pep I think we at least expected average coaching, with Lovie having been to the SB and making changes to his defense towards the end of last year while Pep has a ton of experience, seemed to be helping QBs adjust to the league and while his offense in Indianapolis wasn’t great, he was always in the top half of the league in terms of passing performance. This also allowed Mills to have some continuity in coaching even if the scheme changed.

Mills- The only reason I really felt like he deserved a chance was because he showed signs of being a high IQ, cerebral QB who flashed a solid enough arm, enough mobility to extend plays beyond what an average pocket passer can but not to the level of a scrambler. He also didn’t make very many poor decisions and given that he had such little experience, this was very promising that he understood the game of football.

OL/TE/Caserio- I still believe in Caserio’s drafting abilities because there’s still strong upside to most of his picks. I think most of the fanbase was excited to have someone show competence on draft day. That being said, we thought we were going to have a better OL this year. With Tytus playing tackle- which I will say has panned out imo, an elite tackle at Tunsil, 2 new guards and a slight below average center, one would expect maybe top 20 OL that’s at least serviceable enough to run a real offense. We weren’t expecting much from TEs but thought Brevin might flash a little more in the pass game.

WR- We were supposed to get a 1k type receiver in Cooks who’s been reliable and consistent. Even though he’s not really a WR1 caliber player, he was pretty underrated for a long time and a good security blanket for Mills last year. We were also supposed to have Metchie, who I still believe would have opened up a lot of the offense for the other receivers as well as being a capable weapon himself. Then we would have rounded out the corps with Collins- a young budding receiver with high upside. A bit of a gamble to see if he could become WR2 but the upside is there.

RB – No one was expecting a great running game tbh. I was personally expecting Mack to have games with a range of 3.4-4.1 YPC, Pierce to be a change of pace back who may show some power and promise (I did not expect him to break out like he did).

Overall I think we thought the offense may not be good but at least functional, consistent and have a chance for some good things to happen. Mills’ stretch last year expanded out to a full season would have put him as a top 14 QB. I didn’t expect that to start off but maybe to end the year around 17th. Unfortunately, none of this panned out. In fact most of it turned for the worst.

Pep – He hasn’t layered plays. Too much of this quick game, high percentage play calling doesn’t work. Defenses can just sit on it and predict what you’re going to do because there’s nothing inspiring about this offense at all. I get there’s talent constraints but there’s hasn’t been much done to help address IOL at all and nothing done to slow defenses down. They’re legit able to bring pressure every passing play and Pep hasn’t “self scouted” well enough to fix it. I personally don’t like the offensive philosophy and would rather see him go elsewhere. I don’t think he’s an inherently bad coordinator though- just not the one I want for MY team.

Mills- A lot of misconceptions about Mills. I think there’s bad analysis from people who aren’t watching the tape and some of them who do are blatantly misunderstanding what they’re watching. People are saying he regressed which I completely disagree with. At the beginning of the season, sure he had some accuracy regressions and definitely was a statue that he wasn’t last year. However, Mills got a lot better between the jags and eagles game. Not good enough in this situation though. First of all, he still has some very inconsistent accuracy and ball placement. This wouldn’t be much of an issue because typically a QB gets more accurate as they settle in. He’s got plenty of arm and his throws have more velocity than last year so I wasn’t worried about it. Decision making and processing has actually been good and getting better except for when he turns into Farve late game and forces more throws than a boxing match fixer. In fact at one point I was complaining about his hesitancy and his processing being a tick too slow. He improved on it a bit, although not perfect, it was sufficient for me to still believe he could be saved. HOWEVER, the problem with Mills is not just everything around him being bad but also him not doing enough to overcome it. That’s why people think he sucks. Everything around him is pretty bad but he’s not able to override any of it. For example, there have been quite a few dialed up plays where if Mills did an actual presnap read of the defensive alignment he would have found a better option than the one that was schemed up. People are saying his post snap processing is bad but it’s actually his PRE snap processing. Blatantly missing blitzes and defenders is definitely on the center but missing secondary reads is a Mills issue. He’s not really skipping reads enough so if Pep dials up a bad play or if the receiver doesn’t win his 1s, it’s just going to look like Mills is an idiot. Meanwhile the entire emphasis is get the ball out quickly and you had better listen or else you’re getting flattened by the OL. The team is bad, so Mills is bad with it. If it were good, I’d be willing to bet he would be about the 17th best QB instead of the 30th.

OL- The tackles are good except for the occasional gaff. Would love to retain both if we could. The IOL, aka the 3 Stooges, have been terrible. Kenyon and SQ stay getting beat like a drum. AJ Cann is still not good but most of the time I’m watching just how bad the other 2 are. Green still has time but he might need a coaching change because he’s not getting better so far. Legit one of the worst units I’ve watched. There’s pressure in the backfield from the IOL on more snaps than there isn’t and that’s a problem.

WR- Cooks started off pretty badly. Just interested, dropping balls etc. It’s clear he’s given up on the team. He makes no effort to turn up the field on catches either. Just bad. The talent is still there I think but the heart isn’t. Collins is still budding. He has a real shot to be a legit WR and he can win his 1s. Needs more consistency and to stay healthy as well. Sucked not having him for that stretch. And Pep needs to do a better job of featuring him since he’s trying harder than Cooks. I said that back in week 2. We all know what happened to Metchie. Get well soon 🙏.

RB- Yes we have a RB1… And that’s it. It was disappointing to see how bad Mack looked at times and the fact that the coaching staff really thought he should start over DP is also concerning. It’s nice to have DP but he wasn’t conditioned to be a bell cow from game 1. That definitely hurt us in our play calling balance. Burkhead should never see the field as much as he does. I think he’ll actually retire after this year. We need to see Eno Benjamin to see if we have a legit RB2 because we needed that this year. Oh and the OL is inconsistent in the run game too. That’s wayyyyy too many yards after contact for DP.

Caserio- I have to do this with the understanding that cap space was small, there’s a need for veterans who can give you a guaranteed level of play and no one really wanted to be here in a rebuilding situation. However, he just wasn’t active enough in getting young talent early on. I was begging for a RB2 for so long. I was hoping they’d be active in getting WRs a shot here and it was clear we needed to try some centers as well. Notice I haven’t even talked about the defense whatsoever. I was begging for a safety outside of Owens for a while too. So many holes but not enough inquiries to see if we can carry a guy over to next year. I just wanted him to try at least. Especially with the WR and RB2.

WAY TOO LONG DIDNT READ MFER (TLDR):

A lot of blame to go around. We were optimistic about taking steps forward while still not necessarily being good but most of the stuff we had hoped would work didn’t pan out. Our offensive coaching staff has been disappointing, our QB has been destroyed and we’re not getting enough out of him, our WR room was chalked very quickly, our RB1 was a disappointment and left us with a good RB1 but only 1 RB, our tackles make us happy but our IOL has been a dumpster instead of serviceable, and Caserio sat on his hands a little too much with finding carry over young guys.

Hope for better next year folks.