Bobby Slowik's dismissal creates both opportunity and a complicated problem for the Texans

I was extremely impressed that DeMeco Ryans actually fired Bobby Slowik last Friday.

I think it would have been extremely easy for the Texans to hire a new offensive line coach, give Slowik another year in charge, and let the chips fall where they may. Slowik may not have been close to becoming a head coach last year, but he was in the conversation for a lot of teams. I have been somewhat reticent to fully dump on Slowik because I tend to think of offensive playcallers like relief pitchers — it’s a small sample size and sometimes the opponent is going to hit some dingers. To name a hot example: Kliff Kingsbury didn’t exactly shine his last few years of Arizona and all the sudden he’s coaching in the NFC Championship. I could envision a world where Slowik spends the offseason correcting the pass-protection rules that ailed him last year, and that doesn’t seem far-fetched at all to me.

For that reason, firing Slowik was never something I was all that interested in being vocal about. But at the same time I think there are situations where NFL teams just need to go in a new direction. The baggage outweighs the talent. And to lose that game against the Chiefs the way they did — with Stroud being sacked eight times and scrambling several others — it was very clear that the team never took much of a swing at fixing what ailed them beyond personnel moves and extra blockers on shot plays.

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So I’m impressed that Ryans actually decided to do this. It is very easy to stick with the known, and that has been the Texans MO in the times where things have been broadly good. (By which I mean: They were winning the AFC South.) Bill O’Brien needed to wear out his welcome thoroughly. Mike Vrabel left to be a head coach, but otherwise Romeo Crennell was on the staff for years. Tim Kelly was elevated. Anthony Weaver was elevated. Gary Kubiak needed to wear out his welcome thoroughly, and each of his defensive coordinators had plenty of rope while Rick Dennison was given the OC title the second Kyle Shanahan left after 2009 and was OC for four seasons.

The Texans have not — Wade Phillips aside — been a team that hunted the top available coach pool. They have tended to retain and promote the guys that their head coach loved.

But … can Ryans identify the correct offensive guy?

Because that’s the question that has lingered over him the minute he has hired. It was often used by smart football media as a dismissal to hiring him — “that’s great that you have a head coach, but you picked the defensive guy instead of the offensive guy." That means any time you successfully grow an offensive playcaller, the market will come for him and the offense can be thrown into upheaval just like that. (Of course, that’s not what actually happened with Slowik, and there are some exceptions to this like Ben Johnson and Zac Robinson.)