Nick Caserio had to answer copious questions about the state of the Houston Texans and how the franchise moves forward after the firing of coach David Culley on Jan. 13.
Caserio, who completed his first season as general manager, provided some insight as to why the Texans moved on from Culley after a 4-13 finish in his only season as coach.
“Out of fairness, I think there’s a lot of things that go into it,” Caserio said. “I think, just generally speaking, when you evaluate a team or go through an operation or an organization, you always have to be sort of open minded to change. At least entertaining change, not necessarily change just to change, but there has to be an impetus to change.”
Reportedly Culley was not willing to make changes to his staff after the season, and that was the reason the organization dismissed him. As a corresponding measure, shortly after Culley was let go, offensive coordinator Tim Kelly was fired.
“Just if we move it over to a football perspective, look, our results are what the results are,” Caserio said. “There were certain areas, quite frankly, were we didn’t perform very well over the course multiple weeks. It wasn’t as if it was one week or one game. Going back to what I mentioned earlier, it’s about facing problems and finding solutions, and we need to do a better job of that, I need to do a better job of that.”
Caserio underscored that the decision to move on from Culley was more about what lies ahead, not so much what had occurred.
Said Caserio: “It’s not necessarily one specific thing. I think in the end, there was some differences about next steps or how we move forward, not necessarily rear-view mirror about what has happened.”
What lies ahead for Houston is finding their fifth full-time coach in team history.