Texans hire Patriots’ Nick Caserio as generalmanager.
‘Extremely strong’ interviewleads to same-day hiring
Nick Caserio has agreed to a deal to become the Texans’ new general manager after impressing the team’s search committee during an “extremely strong” interview.
Caserio met Tuesday morning in Houston with a group that included chairman and chief operating officer Cal McNair, according to multiple NFL sources not authorized to speak publicly.
“Nick is great,” anNFLgeneral manager said. “He’s a stud.”
Caserio was hired away from the Patriots, for whom he was director of player personnel. His duties with New England ranged from evaluating college and pro players to negotiating contracts, managing the salary cap, analytics and pitching in with the coaching staff on the practice field.
“Really hard worker, very versatile and is really good at every aspect of the job,” another league executive said. “Nick has paid a lot of dues to get to this point. He’s more than ready.”
The Texans also interviewed Seahawks vice president of player personnel Trent Kirchner on Tuesday and previously interviewed Steelers executive Omar Khan, ESPN analyst Louis Riddick and Matt Bazirgan, their own director of player personnel.
Caserio has frequently interacted with players on the practice field, helping out with drills and throwing passes. At a University ofMaryland Pro Day in 2015 while he and Patriots coach Bill Belichick were on campus towork out future Bills and Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs, Caserio threw every pass for all of the draft prospects because there wasn’t a quarterback available. He displayed solid zip and accuracy while throwing for hours.
“Rare,” Belichick once said
at a press conference when asked about Caserio’s versatility. “Nick does a great job, and he has a great interaction and understanding of what’s going on on the coaching side. He’s involved in the day-to-day coaching part of it. He’s certainly involved in all of the personnel aspects of his job: college, pro, free-agent workouts, waivers, everything.
“But you throw all of the coaching stuff on top of that, the week-to-week role in the press box and on the practice field … I mean, he does a tremendous amount. I can’t think of any other personnel person that would even come close to that.”
Caserio’s hiring completes an objective that began two years ago when the Texans attempted to interview him after they fired general manager Brian Gaine and were briefly facing tampering charges that were withdrawn when they agreed to stop the pursuit. Under his two-year contract extension and new NFL rules, Caserio was allowed to interview this time.
Caserio, 45, is a former John Carroll University quarterback who has six Super Bowl rings and operates as Belichick’s righthand man. Caserio is good
friends with Texans executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby, a former Patriots coach who worked with him for six years in NewEngland.
Easterby operated as the Texans’ interim general manager after coach and GM Bill O’Brien was fired in October following an 0-4 start.
Caserio has worked for the Patriots since 2001, when he was hired as an offensive coaching assistant. He worked as a wide receivers coach before shifting to the personnel side and working as a personnel assistant and area scout before being promoted to director of pro personnel in 2004 and then his current title in 2008.
In 2007, Caserio went back to coaching receivers, and the Patriots put up big numbers with Randy Moss, Wes Welker and Donte Stallworth.
In college, Caserio beat out Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels for the starting quarterback job at John Carroll and went 33-7-2 as a starter. He was a three-time all-conference selection and a two-time team captain who set school records for passing yards, touchdown passes, total offense and completion percentage. Besides McDaniels, Caserio’s teammates included former NFL linebacker London Fletcher and future Patriots executive Dave Ziegler.
After he graduated from college, Caserio worked at Merrill Lynch as a financial adviser before joining the Patriots.
“I am grateful that Bill (Belichick) has given me the responsibilities that he has, and part of what enables me to do my job is the people that I work with on a daily basis,” Caserio said prior to the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory over the Rams in February 2019. “When you have people that you trust and have a lot of faith and confidence in, it makes your job a little bit easier.
“I think it’s great just to observe the team, and you’re listening more than talking. You’re trying to take the information and (determine) if it is something you can articulate to the staff with a real-life example so when you’re talking about a player you can say, ‘Well, OK, this is important, and here is an example why.’ I try and stay in the background and out of the way and really listen more than anything else and observe. If there is something that I pick up and it helps us overall, then it is worthwhile.”