REBUILD STARTS WITH D4
McNair talks of putting up walls, but Caserio first needs to mend fences with irate Watson
Nick Caserio can fix this.
If the ex-Patriot is as well versed in the endless intricacies of NFL life as he is supposed to be.
If he is as poised, intelligent and football-obsessed — in the best possible way — as he was Friday during the Texans’ introductory Zoom conference for their new general manager.
What does Caserio need to fix? Well, basically everything.
With the annual NFL playoffs kicking off Saturday, this marks the 19th consecutive season that the Texans haven’t won a divisional round game. (They don’t have a chance to blow a 24-0 lead this year, because they lost their last five contests and finished an embarrassing 4-12 for the second time in four years).
The Kirby Drive culture needs a complete reboot.
The Texans’ roster costs too much and is too thin, which is the worst combination possible in an unforgiving league consistently defined by its hard salary cap.
J. J. Watt spent almost the entire 2020 season visibly frustrated at the only team he has played for.
And just as the Texans were set to proudly roll out Caserio to a fan base that never has been more frustrated, the unthinkable happened: The Texans made Deshaun-Watson mad.
Like, really mad. Won’t-return-their-phone-calls mad.
On-vacation-and-will-get-back-to-mad.
Maybe you’ve had a job where you felt underappreciated, overlooked and overworked. That’s Watson in January 2021, with the 2020 Texans continuing to take a heavy toll on a 25-year-old franchise quarterback who is already the best QB in Texans history.
Can Caserio fix Watson’s Texans blues?
Yes.
If the new GM remains poised, intelligent and football-obsessed. Hits big more than he misses wide. Borrows enough from Bill Belichick but gradually becomes his own man within NRG Stadium. And resets a culture that is screaming louder than ever for change, change, change.
Bill O’Brien tried, made promising inroads, but ultimately burned a few too many Kirby bridges after accumulating Belichick-like power.
This is Caserio’s shot. He must nail the head coach hire. He must get Watson to answer his phone, then meet with D4 with no one else in the room — especially not Jack Easterby — and listen to everything that the Texans’ best hope has to say.
And then Caserio must get to the real work, which includes surpassing Tennessee and Indianapolis in the AFC South, and finding out some way to be better than Kansas City, Green Bay, Buffalo, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Seattle and all the other better constructed and run teams in the NFL.
“What we’re trying to do is build something that is sustainable and durable for a long period of time,” Caserio said after being introduced by Texans CEO Cal McNair. “That’s going to take some time to put things in place. But again, we’re not going to get there until we actually — we’re going to have to spend the time, we’re going to have to make the investment.
“We’re going to have to invest, and everybody is going to have to invest, and that’s part of the responsibility that Cal and his family have bestowed upon me. It’s a big responsibility, and it’s going to take all of us. Everything we do matters. It’s all going to matter, and it’s going to be a matter of just having a few small wins each day.”
After four years of giving everything for the Texans and then watching his best offensive weapon, DeAndre Hopkins, get traded away for peanuts, Watson now must be won over.
You remember how unbelievably hard it was for the Texans just to find a franchise QB.
Ryan Mallett. Brian Hoyer. Tom Savage. T. J. Yates. Brock Osweiler. Brandon Weeden. Etc., etc.
The Texans didn’t even remember to pick up the phone when they picked their new GM, just so their franchise QB would feel like he was part of the new regime.
Watson has all the leverage in the world. The Texans need D4, desperately.
Fans are mad as hell and swearing that they’re not taking it anymore. Yet McNair spent the end of this week publicly declaring that the Texans are “committed to excellence.”
I thought that was Al Davis’ old slogan for the Raiders.
The Raiders were better than the Texans this season. So were the Cleveland Browns, who went 11-5 and made the postseason for the first time in forever while fighting through countless coronavirus issues.
How can McNair say the Texans are committed to excellence when Caserio walked through the front door for the first time with so much to fix, including getting Watson to smile when promoting the Texans again?
“The way you make these changes is right now we have a vision of — if you will, if you follow me for a second — we’re going to build a wall,” said
McNair, during his first media interview since taking over the Texans in November 2018. “It’s going to be brick by brick. We’re going to pick up a brick, put it down, put it down in the right place, put the mortar around it, make sure it’s set, make a great decision. Then we’re going to go to the next one, and it’s going to be day by day, making great decisions, getting this thing exactly where we want it, knowing that we’re not far off from where we were.
“It’s a great day to be a Texan, because this is a big break. This guy sitting next to me, Nick Caserio, has extreme competency, and we’ll work together, we’ll cooperate, we’ll collaborate, cooperate, and that will get us the fastest to where we want to get to be, is by doing all that. Before you know it, you’ll look back and we’ll have built a substantial brick wall that we are all committed and proud of.”
To quote Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, wouldn’t it be nice.
I love my job, but I’m tired of writing mean things about the Texans as 2021 begins.
How disappointing they are. How frustrating they are.
How McNair needs better professional advice, and the McNairs are increasingly disconnected from a fan base that has been the heart of the team since 2002.
That Watt is mad at the Texans and now Watson is mad at the Texans and an estimated 98 percent of Houston is so darn mad at the Texans.
Can Caserio fix all that and win a Super Bowl with D4?
It’s time for the past to be trashed and a new culture to be established.
Before Watson turns the fence separating him from the Texans into a brick wall.