Despite little being expected of this Texans squad, the franchise is moving on from David Culley after one season. Culley is out in Houston after the team’s 4-13 slate, Mark Berman of Fox 26 tweets.
This move comes three days after Black Monday and two days after the Giants axed Joe Judge. While this clears out another HC position, it is a tough break for Culley, who took over a team in a bad situation.
In December, Culley was viewed as being safe to stay aboard for a second Houston season. Soon after, however, the winds started to shift a little. GM Nick Caserio may or may not have a successor lined up. Given Caserio’s connection to Josh McDaniels, speculation understandably ensued connecting those dots.
Culley navigated the messy Deshaun Watson situation fairly smoothly, deactivating the embattled Pro Bowler throughout the season. The Texans’ previous regime also saddled the new one without first- or second-round picks in last year’s draft. Caserio signed numerous midlevel veterans to one- or two-year contracts, setting up the 2021 season to be a transition year before the team becomes more aggressive on the rebuilding front. While the Texans improved and notched multiple major upsets late in the season, it was not enough for a placeholder HC to stay on.
The Culley hire came out of nowhere. The Ravens wide receivers coach was not involved in any other team’s interview process and had not called plays for an NFL team previously. The Ravens recouped two third-round picks, the second coming this year, because of this surprising hire. With Culley’s firing coming after Brian Flores‘ surprising ouster, Mike Tomlin is the NFL’s only Black head coach at the moment. Flores figures to have options soon, perhaps in Houston, with he and Caserio working together in New England for over a decade. But he has only been connected to the Bears thus far.
Some murkiness has surfaced regarding Culley’s contract. After Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweeted that just two years on Culley’s five-year deal were guaranteed, the 66-year-old coach indicated (via Berman, on Twitter) his full five-year deal is, in fact, guaranteed. A partially guaranteed deal would indeed be a highly unusual arrangement. Culley will collect $17MM through the life of this deal, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets.
Culley’s in-game decision-making certainly veered toward questionable often, and it was clear he was not viewed as a long-term leader in Houston. Davis Mills‘ promising performance down the stretch, despite being a third-round pick, does provide some hope for a franchise that has gone 8-25 over the past two seasons. Among rookies, only Mac Jones had a better QBR than Mills — albeit in a smaller sample size — this season.
Mills’ progress notwithstanding, the Texans are also firing offensive coordinator Tim Kelly, Schefter tweets. Kelly was a holdover from the Bill O’Brien regime and had been with the team since O’Brien’s 2014 hire. Kelly, 35, worked his way up from quality control level to become Houston’s OC by the 2019 season. The Texans advanced to the playoffs behind a Watson Pro Bowl campaign that year. While Watson excelled in 2020 as well, the team fell off a cliff.
The Texans ranked 32nd offensively this season, and Ian Rapoport of NFL.com adds that Culley was asked to make changes to his offensive staff (Twitter link). While it can obviously be argued Culley was set up to fail this season, his refusal to fire Kelly may well have contributed to the one-and-done. Kelly’s ouster will certainly not be the last one, with the Texans pivoting again under Caserio.
I’m sure he’ll land on his feet. Wonder if they go after Flores and make his dream of coaching Deshaun Watson come true
Yeah, this feels like them going after Flores.
I’m ok with that as long as he doesn’t expect to have the same power OBrien had.
No, Casario will not be handing power over.
Flores effectively blocked trading for Watson because he didn’t want the drama associated with him.
Unless the deal to trade Tua for Watson is part of a gentleman’s agreement, why would he want to walk into the hornets nest?
4 wins with that terrible team and no Deshaun Watson? Should’ve gotten a raise! What legitimate candidate would want this job?
He also started developing Mills who didn’t look too bad at seasons end for a development project. This is just patriot exe hiring patriot coaching staff.
D.U.M.P.S.T.E.R. F.I.R.E
Culley barely even had a chance to showcase what he is capable of as a HC what a moronic move By the Texans, I believe he got 3 more wins than expected for them so….
Gotta hire Flores
Brian Flores step on down!
Trade down and out of the 1st round.
Acquire draft picks 2nds 3rds 4ths this year and next year
Build roster around Mills on offense you can find good wrs and rbs in 2nd 3rd rounds.
Fix oline. Bring in some pieces on defense via FA
Trade Watson
Call it an off season.
If they aren’t making this move to hire Brian Flores immediately then it’s a mistake. This guy definitely got more out of that barren roster than he should’ve and seemed to have command of his locker room. This firing make very little sense at all without a swift hiring of Flores on the radar.
What a terrible decision. McDaniels will destroy every bit of the culture that Culley tried to build, which is the ONLY reason Houston won any games at all this season.
This dude got screwed. Houston played tough with what they had and didn’t just lay down like some other teams. Hope he gets another chance.
Houston had absolutely no business winning four games and being competitive in a couple more. Culley acquitted himself well in a year when he was set up to fail. I guess Flores makes sense here with the Caserio connection, but Flores has earned a better opportunity than this one. A roster with hardly any above average talent, Davis Mills at QB and a high pick in a draft with no top end QB prospects, when there are a huge number of head coach openings around the league. Not to mention the Watson situation, the shenanigans with McNair and Easterby, or that it’s a team that fired a head coach after one year when he had no way to succeed. This might be the least appealing head coach job on the market.
The amount of people that really think Culley getting fired is a terrible decision is hilarious. This guy had no shot from the beginning and made it even easier for the team to kick him to the curb after he was incompetent thru out the season. Seems like a great guy, but he’s not a HC.
Texans….SMH.
Texans want to trade some number ones to the Steelers for Mike Tomlin?
Clearly most of the posters watcher very little of the Texans. Cully was terrible. Nice guy,but zero situational awareness. It’s obvious why he was never even selected to be an NFL coordinator prior to the Texans making him a HC. His post game comments showed his lack of game awareness. The Texans finished with one of the historically worst points against them following halftime. Was something like -256. SMH. Love to see Harbaugh, Flores, or Mayo. Brady as OC would be great. Mills has shown he may be good enough, he’s better than all of the QB draft prospects in this draft. Grabbing him last year with a 3rd was smart. Flip Watson to the Giants and pick up their 2 1st rounders and a 2nd rounder. Add our 4 picks in top 80 and flip Tunsil for another 1st and we are reloaded.
None of us said he was great. We’re just saying that the Texans are worse.
At this time last year, nobody wanted that job. Culley took it. Now, people are considering the HC position in Houston as an actual job opportunity. That team has no identity, and Culley started to build one. He may not have been great in real time during the games, which was expected, but he certainly put in the work in the locker room, which is the first step and most important step to building a team. That’s the reason that teams like the Steelers, Pats, or Ravens win games, even while they’re down-there’s an expectation of what being on that team means. Culley started to build that in Houston, where players actually tried to win. For that he deserves credit, because obviously it’s a thankless job.
I legit just found out that Culley is black. I don’t remember it being brought up when he was hired. Hiring the WR coach from a team with awful WR’s probably wasn’t wise.
He’s been a coach for 44 years and you’re judging him based on the receivers at his last stop?
I mean yeah, Raven’s WRs suck and despite following football closely I had never heard of him. Am I missing something? And I didn’t say he couldn’t coach, but has he ever called any plays before or anything? I know his in-game moves seemed to frustrate Texans fans.
$4 mil to stay at home if he wants? Sign me up for that.
They did that dude dirt. SMH.
They could do me dirty all they want for $4 million dollars.
4-13 with that roster should of earned him coach of the year. Nagy had way more talent and won 6 games.
This is dumb.
I thought Culley was NOT getting fired. We’re your sources wrong? LOL!
Poor guy. 4-13 is better than I’d expect. Was hired to strictly be the fall guy. Hope he’s at least compensated fairly.
Yeah. The Texans are easily the worst team in the league. They hardly have any talent to build around, either. It’s going to be a loooooooooooooooong road for them.
Culley was a bad HC, but he was a token hire to begin with. If I remember correctly, Watson wanted the Texans to hire Bieniemy. And instead of doing that (or trying to find a qualified HC candidate), the Texans hoped that hiring a black coach with a good reputation would somehow change Watson’s opinion and make him want to stick around.
Short of him somehow defying all the odds and turning this Texans roster into a contender, he was never going to last more than two years. Roster was set up to fail and Culley is the convenient scapegoat.
Pretty clear the Texans were simply marking time this year while waiting for the Watson mess to resolve itself and hiring an unknown such as Culley was just part of that plan – which you can be sure he knew. Given how unfair it was to Culley and this year’s players I would really like to see both the franchise and Watson take it up the fanny in the court system.
No doubt Caserio goes New England. Mayo, Flores, or McDaniels will be the HC.
If this was a stop-gap hire from the word go, how in the world did he wrangle $22 million bitdoges for 1 year’s worth of..work?