I want to give Nick Caserio time.
He just relocated his professional life to Houston during the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and joined what has recently been one of the worst-run franchises in pro sports.
You want to — check that: need to — believe that the Texans’ new general manager possesses a brilliant master plan that will finally lift a backward organization that is 135-169 all-time to the top of the relentless, unforgiving NFL.
Daily hope and optimism are as essential in 2021 as they were in 2020. Sports help carry us through the random chaos.
So here’s a free tip to the new GM who received a six-year, $30 million contract to take over the football side of a franchise that officially still features the embattled Deshaun Watson as its starting quarterback.
Texans fans aren’t idiots, Nick.
They’re not dumb.
They’re not stupid.
They proudly live in the great state of Texas and, thus, believe in and swear by the life-affirming power of football.
And many of the truest and most dedicated Texans fans trace their NFL love back to the Oilers.
Which means they saw and lived through it all before Houston eventually received its second NFL team. And the last thing that is needed at this perilous moment in local sports history is for the new front-office leader of the Texans — who’s never won an NFL game running a team and worked under Bill Belichick’s all-encompassing shadow in New England — to treat long-frustrated and increasingly furious Texans fans like they’re idiots.
So cut the baby-food coachspeak, Nick. And at least show a little personal and professional respect for a fanbase that your battered franchise will soon be begging to semi-fill NRG Stadium in less than five months.
Caserio was asked back-to-back questions Friday night about the Texans using their first pick of the 2021 NFL draft — they waited until the No. 67 overall selection to get in the game — on unproven Stanford QB Davis Mills at a time when Watson is still employed by the Texans, veteran Tyrod Taylor is set to become the Week 1 starter and Ryan Finley is expected to be Taylor’s backup.
The words that followed were instant classics in useless, pointless and absurdly dumbed-down contemporary coachspeak.
“It's about trying to create competition across the football team,” Caserio said.
When the next question specifically linked the drafting of Mills with Watson’s highly unpredictable future — the 25-year-old franchise QB requested a trade in January and is now facing 22 civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault or harassment, with a potential lengthy NFL suspension looming — the Texans’ three-month GM again leaned hard on the coachspeak crutch (even though he’s not a head coach).
“When it came time to pick at 67, we felt that that was the best decision for our team at the time, so it doesn't impact anybody,” Caserio said. “Again, our whole philosophy has been to create as much competition as possible and we'll continue to do that.”
Create as much competition as possible?
It doesn’t impact anybody?
Are you freaking kidding me??!
If the Texans were really in business to create fierce internal competition, wouldn’t they have kept J.J. Watt in uniform, instead of ripping up the remaining contract for the best defender in team history and giving away super-famous No. 99 for free in February?
Watson led the NFL in passing yards last season, ranked second in passer rating and was third in completion percentage. His name has been plastered across social media and national news headlines since 2021 began. And the Texans are trying to create “competition” for him?
If your phone just beeped with a fake news alert, you're not the only one.
A couple of you are going to follow with the standard, “Well, what was he supposed to say?” line.
Um, anything other than what he actually said.
How hard would it have been for Caserio to acknowledge the complexity and uncertainty of Watson’s legal situation, then admit that adding a fourth quarterback to a roster that, at most, normally fits three gave the Texans more flexibility moving forward?
And isn’t publicly repeating the exact opposite of what was really happening that helped push the Texans into this unprecedented situation in the first place?
“He is our quarterback,” first-year head coach David Culley stubbornly said over and over on March 11, before Watson’s legal troubles were publicly known. “We’re very committed to Deshaun as our quarterback. He’s the only guy we have under contract at this time.”
The Texans were a sad 4-12 last season, could end up as the NFL’s worst team this year and entered the draft without first- and second-round picks, despite possessing glaring holes on both sides of the ball.
Jacksonville, once a near-annual disaster, now has Trevor Lawrence and clearly has more upside than the Texans.
Hanging another AFC South banner inside NRG this season would almost feel like winning the Super Bowl. Or winning a divisional-round playoff game for the first time.
Mills might become the next Matt Schaub (or better). But if the inexperienced former Cardinal creates a lasting name in the NFL, it will partly be because the Texans outsmarted the league at No. 67, not because they were trying to create “competition” for Taylor, who wasn’t supposed to start a single game when he was signed to an incentive-heavy, one-year deal on March 16.
Drafting Mills only meant one thing for the broken Texans.
The most talented quarterback in franchise history — and the only franchise QB in team history — is officially 99.99 percent gone. All that remains is for D4’s name to coldly appear on the transaction wire.
Texans fans knew that as soon as their team drafted another quarterback.
As time passes, hopefully Caserio will learn how to be as smart as Texans fans.
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