Risky move seems fitting for franchise so unstable

Who?

What?

Why?

Most importantly: Why now?

The Texans didn’t just go outside of the box with this one.

Houston’s NFL team went outside all 32 pro stadiums and blew up the darn box.

On a personal level, I hope it works out for David Culley. Heck of a story. Unbelievable, really, to go from never being a head coach at any level to suddenly being on the verge of becoming the 65-year-old head coach of the dramashow Texans.

But on a professional, NFL-cutthroat level?

When you factor in that Deshaun Watson is one sentence away from never playing for the Texans again and J.J. Watt’s Texans future is TBD?

Boom or bust.

And that’s the nice way of saying it.

The Texans were the first to fire and are currently the last to hire. Which means that no one else in the NFL was about to hand Culley, who recently was employed as Baltimore’s assistant head coach/passing coordinator, a prime head coaching gig.

They’re super prestigious, even when you fail. There are only 32 to go around in the entire world and normally you at least have to spend some time as an offensive or defensive coordinator to eventually receive one.

Culley has not.

He started at Austin Peay in 1978 as a running backs coach. He was coaching wide receivers at Chattanooga and quarterbacks at Southwestern Louisiana in the 1980s. When Bill O’Brien was shuffling through average Texans

QBs and just beginning to take over Kirby Drive, Culley was Kansas City’s wide receivers coach from 2013-16.

Which means that he will either take the Texans to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history and turn CEO Cal McNair into a long-delayed local genius. Or Culley will be fired at some point in the next few years and fans will spend the majority of the time leading up to that moment furiously blaming new general manager Nick Caserio and in-the-middleof-everything Jack Easterby.

If Culley fails, Caserio fails.

If Culley falls short, Easterby (finally) has to go. And McNair should listen to enraged Texans fans and fire himself.

This is a shocker and a stunner and an all-timer.

Watson doesn’t know if he wants to play for you anymore. A 25-year-old franchise quarterback is questioning everything about the Texans and has

reportedly lost his personal faith in McNair.

How do the 4-12 Texans respond? By hiring the absolutely unproven Culley — when they could have hired almost anyone else in the football world. Or just waited until Eric Bieniemy was finished with Super Bowl LV.

I guess Dabo Swinney was busy.

Buffalo defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, who coached Minnesota from 2010-13, must not have been good enough for the Kirby culture.

Be honest: Who would you rather have coaching the Texans — O’Brien or Culley?

Bieniemy or Culley? Gary Kubiak or Culley? Dom Capers or ... OK. That’s not fair. Culley will walk into NRG Stadium as the exact opposite of O'Brien, allowing the Texans to maintain top-down control and Caserio/Easterby to run the organization without internal interference. O'Brien

started soaking up power in Year One. Culley could be replaced by Josh McCown in a couple years if the Texans' latest version of Patriots South really goes south.

Culley also might not be recognized by anyone when he walks into NRG and will probably have to call security just to gain entry to the Texans' locker room.

Urban Meyer was instantly a big deal in Jacksonville. Texans fans spent Wednesday night Googling Culley, just so they could know something about their new HC.

The local and national bar will be so low, again, that making the playoffs and winning the AFC South will be praised by some.

The Texans have Watson.

They should be competing annually for Super Bowls, just like Kansas City with Patrick Mahomes.

This is risky with a capital R.

You might cut through

all the ____ and just call it crazy, then swear on Facebook that you’re selling your season tickets.

Then again, so was making the Texans completely dysfunctional the last 18 months, then allowing “sources close to Watson” to keep destroying the organization in the national media while a weird HC search kept dragging out in public.

Also risky: Hiring the Ravens’ passing coordinator as your new head coach. Lamar Jackson is brilliant and won an NFL MVP before he turned 24. But it’s not like Baltimore’s passing game set the NFL on fire in 2020.

In 2021, the Texans went hard right while everyone else was coolly swaying to the left. They zigged while the NFL zagged. They bet it all on Culley when fans were screaming and pleading for Bieniemy.

Again: I hope this works out for Culley. It will be an amazing story, if so. Books will be written. Hollywood will call. ESPN will make another “30 for 30” — How David Culley (who?) saved the Texans and kept Deshaun Watson in Houston.

But this is the Texans. Thus far, they have always let you down. Ignored you. Kept asking for more money, trust and devotion while going 4-12 for the second time in four seasons with Watson as their franchise QB.

Easterby is still around in the murky background.

McNair talks about building a wall, brick by brick, during a time when impenetrable walls are increasingly out of fashion.

All that really matters is if Watson stays.

By embracing boom or bust this hard with Culley, the Texans once again only made it harder on themselves.

Good luck to the Texans’ new HC.

He’s really going to need it.