Battle Red Blog
Raise your hand if you’ve seen this before: The Houston Texans play a night game on National TV and get utterly embarrassed.
With 2 weeks to prepare for the Seattle Seahawks, the Texans offense took the field and looked totally unprepared.
While the defense played to form, offensive coordinator Nick Caley’s job looked phoned in by drunken frat boys playing Mutant League Football.
So far, blame has fallen on quarterback C.J. Stroud, general manager Nick Caserio, the offensive line, head coach Demeco Ryans, and of course, Caley.
But, with that much blame to go around, you have to start somewhere in trying to fix it.
Benching Stroud in favor of Davis Mills or another QB likely won’t get better results. Stroud has things to correct, but a smart young man who continually looks confused and discouraged speaks to poor coaching/scheme/playcalling.
You can’t bench the entire o-line… as much as you may want to…
Blaming Caserio for a lack of game day preparation and play calling ineptitude speaks to not knowing what role the GM plays in all this. Could he have actually fielded a competent o-line? Yes. Did he? No. But a good coach could overcome that.
The responsibility of the failure falls on the head coach, so Ryans should (and does) take the heat. But that doesn’t mean he’s the problem. It just means he’s situationally aware and has the integrity to shoulder the blame that comes with the big chair amidst failure.
And that brings us to Caley.
Aside from 6 quarters of football, against 2 teams that are circling the drain this season, Caley has shown nothing to give anyone the impression he’s a professional caliber offensive coordinator.
Maybe he’d make a great Pop Warner one. Or, intramural/Boys and Girls Club. High School? Possibly. NCAA – probably not good enough to compete with the pro football factory schools. The NFL? Certainly not.
Unfortunately, Houston has shown no movement to replace Caley, seemingly ok with riding this Titanic into every iceberg left on the 2025 schedule.
This isn’t to say that Stroud can’t do better, that Caserio is certainly not the greatest GM to ever live or that Ryans doesn’t have his work cut out for him. But at least the 3 of them belong in the NFL in their roles.
With the 5-2 San Francisco 49ers coming to NRG this weekend, don’t expect anything more than a continuation of offensive ineptitude.
The bright spot in all this? Historicaly good defenses have managed to carry teams to the promised land in the past. The 1985 Chicago Bears, 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers and 2006 Baltimore Ravens were killer Ds that didn’t necessarily have pro bowl offenses helping them out. Maybe Will Anderson, Derek Stingley Jr and Calen Bullock can match that in H-Town this year?
Maybe?
