One sit-down with Houston Texans general manager Nick Caserio and you can tell he is knowledgeable. If you have heard him speak, you know that he references many things outside of football that he incorporates into his daily operations.
With one more game left on the Texans’ 2022 schedule against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, it is safe to say that Caserio may have already begun to study the blueprint laid out by the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals.
The Bengals acquired LSU wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase with the fifth pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. They reunited him with his college quarterback Joe Burrow whom Cincinnati selected first overall a year prior.
Burrow and Chase made magic during the 2019-20 National Championship season for LSU, who ironically has the nickname of the “Bayou Bengals.” Burrow finished his Heisman Trophy-winning campaign with 5,671 yards passing and 60 touchdowns.
Chase, who was the recipient of the Fred Biletnikoff Award for the college football’s top wideout, was on the receiving end of 1,780 yards and 20 touchdowns of Burrow’s history-making season.
By the end of the 2021 regular season, the Bengals realized that they had made the right choice by pairing the dynamic duo of Chase and Burrow together again. The rookie receiver set an NFL record with 1,455 yards, and Burrow completed 70 percent of his passes as Cincinnati came within three points of defeating the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI.
“I think we just have a lot of reps accumulated together,” Burrow said before facing the Rams in the Super Bowl.
If Houston fails to defeat the Colts in Week 18, they will be in a prime position for the first overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft. Most have the Texans selecting quarterback Bryce Young from Alabama.
When it is time to make that selection, Caserio may have a visual of the Bengals’ spectacular run with Burrow and Chase and pair Young with his former college wide receiver in Texans rookie receiver John Metchie.
Although Metchie was an intricate part of the Crimson Tide’s 2020-21 national championship run, Young did most of his work ensuring that the first-team defense was prepared every week as he ran the scout team offense.
Young and Metchie were looking to have breakout seasons in 2021, making a formidable tandem replacing quarterback Mac Jones and Heisman Trophy winner wide receiver DeVonta Smith.
“Metchie has been really good for us,” said Young during an interview before the season started. “He talked about being kind of that veteran presence for us in the receiving core, someone who’s come back, someone who’s definitely dependable, and someone who’s got a lot of experience. He brings a lot of that to not only his own game but to the entire team.”
Still, it was a rocky start for the pair as they struggled to find a connection early on.
Before a midseason loss to Texas A&M, the Young-to-Metchie connection only netted 275 receiving yards, which equated to 55 yards per game through six games. If Alabama were going to repeat as National Champions, they would need Young and Metchie to be on the same page as they headed into the heart of their demanding SEC West schedule.
It could have been the extra throwing sessions that followed the A&M loss, or it could have been a stern message from head coach Nick Saban that connected the two afterward. Either way, they found some chemistry for the rest of the season, leading to almost double the yards per game average for Metchie from 55 to 108.3.
Although the Crimson Tide fell short in their bid to win back-to-back National Championships, Metchie finished the season with 1,142 receiving yards and eight touchdowns in 13 games. At the same time, Young secured the Heisman Trophy Award in his first full season as the Alabama signal caller.
Suppose the Texans make Young their first overall selection. In that case, the chemistry between him and Metchie may take some time to be recreated like it was in 2021, as Metchie has sat out the entire 2022 season as he recovers from APL (Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia), the most curable form of Leukemia. Conditioning may take a while, but that time could be used to get reacclimated with Young.
With a Houston team headed into its third rebuilding season, having a quarterback and wide receiver familiar with one another is a massive step toward making it back to the postseason for the Texans.
Young displayed his NFL ball placement ability to NFL scouts in attendance in the 2022 Sugar Bowl win over the Kansas State Wildcats. He threw for 321 yards and five touchdowns while showing off his high-level processing ability to avoid pressure and go through his wide receiver progressions.
The Texans desperately need a consistent signal caller after ending the season using the two-quarterback system of Davis Mills and Jeff Driskel. It caught the defensive coordinators from the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs off guard the first two weeks but has become more of a gimmick to end the season.
Through 17 weeks, Houston ranks last in the NFL in offense at 278.8 yards per game, and their passing game has been putrid. Mills has 14 touchdowns and 13 interceptions on the season and has been very inconsistent throughout the season, leading to him being benched for backup quarterback Kyle Allen.
He also has the propensity to shrink when the team needs him in the clutch, a gene that Young has never displayed in his two years as a starter at Alabama.
If Caserio brings first-year offensive coordinator Pep Hamilton back for one more season, drafting a quarterback like Young and pairing him with a healthy Metchie may unlock the rest of the playbook that was unable to be used because of the limitations of Mills.
Houston may decide to go with Ohio State C.J. Stroud or Will Levis at the quarterback position when it is time to make their first selection in April, which some NFL draft analysts believe will have a better upside than Young, who measures out at 6-0 and 194 pounds.
Yet, the man making the decisions came from an organization that prides itself on building a foundation to win and studying other teams with a successful and consistent model of doing it.
The Bengals showed last season the rest of the league that the combination of Burrow and Chase worked in college and in the NFL.
Caserio should follow the blueprint.