Not a shitty first draft so much as a shitty ethos

The thing about the 2025 Houston Texans is: They were never going to be a team that was hard to first-guess. If they failed, it was going to be very clear where they failed (offense) and what moves they made that were going to fail them (offensive coordinator, offensive line shuffling) – and the haters were right, honestly, great call by the haters.

When the Texans swept Bobby Slowik out of town, it was a switch, but it wasn't a clean sweep. What I mean by that is: most of their offensive coaching staff were here in 2024. Jerrod Johnson is here, Bill Lazor is here, Ben McDaniels is here, Danny Barrett is here, Cole Popovich was an assistant given the reins of the biggest problem in Texans history. They changed the playcaller rather than the ethos. And now they are being failed by both of them.

There are two ways an NFL offense can succeed. One of them is to have better players than everyone else. The Texans do not have those players.

What we do to quarterbacks in the social media era is believe they are either the worst player on the planet or the next Mahomes. I don't think C.J. Stroud is either of those guys. I haven't given up hope that he can be better than he currently is playing with a better infrastructure, but I think the ceiling is more Joe Burrow than Mahomes. And given his lack of upper-tier physical talent, I think picking him was always more about a safer floor. Again, that's not to say that he's dogshit or that it's his fault – just if we're being honest with ourselves three years into it, shouting "best rookie season eva at least until Jayden Daniels did it better" doesn't do much for us today. He has picked up pocket drifting in a way that is unseemly because he can't trust the protections, and the offense is so poor that he has to do this shit to throw a passing touchdown against a real team:

The Texans haven't provided him with a better infrastructure for two reasons. One of them is: Nick Caserio gave up on Stefon Diggs and Laremy Tunsil and didn't really hunt for stars to replace them. The Tank Dell and Joe Mixon situations are unfortunate, but the Texans also can't build an offense out of "please feel bad that Tank Dell and Joe Mixon are gone." There's an element of long-term cap management to this too, which, okay – that's cool and all but also an excuse.

The other reason I think is part of who Caserio is as a talent evaluator. We're watching a platoon at left guard of Juice Scruggs and Laken Tomlinson in which neither player is good. What has been preached since the moment he's gotten here is versatility. But if you watched them play the Seahawks, that versatility folded the instant the Texans found someone more physical than them:

This is a consistent theme of his tenure: The Texans do not have ass-kickers. Shaq Mason was probably the closest thing they had to someone who did that – and he actually worked out until he got too old to keep going! But the ethos is simply: We can combo block our way past not being as physical. And it never works.

The other way you win as an offense is out-scheming a defense. Catching them on their heels at the right time, dictating game flow and tempo to them, building an identity and playing off of that, those sorts of ideas. I'm not going to say Nick Caley will forever be terrible at this because he's six games into his play-calling career. But he doesn't have the feel yet. The closest thing you can say the Texans have to an offensive identity is roll-out dumpoffs in the flat and back-shoulder balls to Nico Collins, neither of which consistently work. They've created as many red zone drives (14) as the New York Jets, and look completely clueless when they get there and the space is even more condensed.

Elementally, this team has never overcome losing to the Packers at Lambeau Field last year and getting destroyed by sim pressures. It is the easiest thing in the world to do to the Texans, because they do not build their offense around actually dealing with pressure.

Find me a player who is open here. Motion brings 17 across the line of scrimmage, where he is immediately locked up and barely even tries to get out of it. Schultz is bracketed in the middle. Collins and Hutchinson outside are running long-developing routes. Either Stroud lobs it in their direction or tries to beat the linebacker. Stuff like this happens every week, even when they play the Titans or Ravens. The Texans never talk about changing it. The default answer is always something about working harder or doing a better job, or maybe at best you get "executing better." They've been schematically neutered.

The good news is that once you fix the talent and plan around Stroud, I think this will be a strong offense. It will never be a Mahomes offense. But after watching Daniel Jones and Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield all reclaim glory as they get into better situations and grew as players, I think it's frankly idiotic to pretend that Stroud is a problem (derogatory) – he will be fine once given an actual plan on pressures and open receivers to throw to.

The bad news is that it is time for tough decisions. Even if the Texans turn this around from here. I think the best-case scenario for this offense is a lot of Caley growth in a hurry, perhaps with the rookie Iowa State receivers really creating some advantages that all these special-teamers have not so far.

The annoying thing is: Nothing that Caley is saying in these press conferences sounds stupid when the reporters actually are able to break him out of Generic Football Coach Mode. He talks the talk. Nobody cares about how often Nico Collins moves if the offense works. Nobody cares about how much play-action gets run if the downfield passes and middle-of-field are checked.

But the walk remains unwalked.