Nick Caley is the Texans' new offensive coordinator. Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast react to the news for the first time on Radio Row in New Orleans.
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00:00I'm really happy just to be in the city of New Orleans.
00:02It's cool to have a working vacation in New Orleans where you're taking in a really unique
00:08city in an environment where there's growing excitement throughout the week and then at
00:14the same time there's really cool stuff happening with your football team back in Houston.
00:20So all of you folks back there in Houston stuck in a city where it's not normal to be
00:24drunk at 9am in the morning, where people will judge you for it.
00:29You do at least have the consolation of, hey, this is different.
00:34This is something different.
00:36Nick Caley seemed to be the frontrunner, even though we were just kind of putting the pieces
00:41together.
00:42Nick Caley, the passing game coordinator for the Rams, a guy who was with the Patriots
00:47for seven years, many of those years with Nick Casario, but then spent two years with
00:52the Rams.
00:53He'd been offered offensive coordinator positions and turned them down a couple times already.
00:58So there's some social proof there.
01:01Now the fact that the Jets wanted him, it doesn't mean all of a sudden, oh, he must
01:06be the belle of the ball.
01:07The Jets, ooh, even the Jets wanted him, but it was Aaron Glenn and the new regime that
01:11wanted him.
01:12So he turned down the Jets last year, so we know he has good judgment.
01:21Maybe he could have been the spark that made all that engine go, but he's been a coveted
01:26guy and he very specifically looked at the Texans and thought, okay, this is a situation
01:31that I feel comfortable that I've got a good opportunity to showcase myself and actually
01:36win some football games.
01:37Yeah, I think that's what you laid out there, Seth.
01:39I think it says a lot about the attractiveness of the Texans as an offensive coordinator
01:44job, obviously, as an organization, you know, D'Amico and the coaching staff, and obviously
01:50the biggest statement who it's on is CJ Stroud, you know, that you're going to be coaching
01:56one of the young up and coming quarterbacks, and if you get him back to or exceeding what
02:00he was two years ago, you'll be hailed as a conquering hero, Nick.
02:05Yeah, there's a little bit of, you know, if you're a stock car driver, there's only so
02:10much you can do with your natural ability.
02:12You're tied to your car, your team, your sponsors, all of that.
02:16It's that whole environment that matters a lot.
02:18So you got to be really, you got to hope you put yourself in the right environment and
02:21get the best environment around you.
02:25From Nick Kaley's perspective, he's turned down other situations, and he liked this one.
02:30So I would imagine, my suspicion is that they probably liked him last week as their front
02:36runner, and it's been a whole lot of maybe negotiating, talking about potentially which
02:41assistant coaches he'd like to bring, and all of that has gone into it.
02:47Who knows?
02:48Maybe not, but that's a scenario that makes the most sense to me.
02:52Yeah.
02:53I had a reading out there yesterday that they're going to let him pick his staff, but I imagine
02:59there's going to be, you know, there'll be plenty of input, I would imagine, from D'Amico
03:02Ryans and Nick Casario.
03:05He's probably, like, as far as pedigree goes, he's probably like the most Texans-friendly
03:11pedigree.
03:12When you consider he went to John Carroll, spent six years in the building with Nick
03:15Casario in New England, has at least a couple of years in a Koop-Shanna-Stan-esque environment.
03:24It's not exactly Kyle Shanahan, but it's a branch off of that tree with Sean McVay.
03:28We're going to hear some audio later in the show where, you know, Sean McVay gushes about
03:32him.
03:33The reviews around the league are very much a thumbs up for this hire, from everything
03:38that I've read.
03:39All the quotes, people really like Nick Kaley.
03:42What was your gut reaction when you got the push notification yesterday?
03:46It was one of those things, it's, um, it wasn't a surprise to me, I was just happy to have
03:53some clarity.
03:54And you feel like, okay, we can move forward.
03:56It's a huge unknown.
03:57You just don't know.
03:59But I always remind myself in these situations, it's always a huge unknown.
04:04You just never know how any coach, no matter how great he is, is going to be in any scenario.
04:10Look at Bill Parcells, in any place he went, or some of the other great coaches, you just
04:19don't know until they get in that environment, no matter what the position is.
04:24But he checks off all the boxes in terms of a hire that makes sense.
04:30My initial concern about Nick Kaley when I first heard his name was, alright, this guy,
04:36and let me look at his resume.
04:38And you go down and you see that he's been a position coach for so many years, until
04:41he was finally the passing game coordinator this past season with the Rams, underneath
04:46Sean McVay.
04:47So Sean McVay's the play caller, the offensive coordinator.
04:49And my initial thought was, alright, well, this guy's been in the league around a while,
04:55why is he not more talked about?
04:56And then you dig into it a little bit more, and you realize, oh, he has been talked about,
04:59he's just, he's not been out there at the forefront, he hasn't caught the whole, sometimes
05:05it's the guys that are really adept at getting their name out there, where there's more buzz
05:10about it.
05:12And I'm always actually a little bit distrustful of those guys, because I wonder, like, okay,
05:16so you've been promoting yourself while working for somebody else, surreptitiously.
05:22What kind of information are you giving that person?
05:24What kind of information are you giving that national writer that he also wants to plug
05:29for you?
05:30Every time I hear Albert Breer or Ian Rappaport gush about some up-and-coming candidate, I'm
05:35like, alright, what info did he dish that he wasn't supposed to?
05:40So I kind of like that you hear the, for one, you see that another couple teams, another
05:46few teams have tried to get him, and they liked him, but he also hasn't been feeding
05:50information to the national nugget hussies.
05:53Which might be the biggest Texan thing, biggest aspect of him, Texan-wise, that he may have
05:59going for him.
06:00The lockdown environment, where nothing leaks out of the building.
06:04I want guys who the British Intelligence Service would want working for them.
06:09Like, okay, this guy knows how to keep a low profile.
06:12He's got microfilms, so he's got a lot of integrity.
06:18But it's still a huge unknown, and that's what we roll into.
06:23There's gonna be, as it is with anybody their first time in a position, there'll be hiccups,
06:28hopefully he has enough on the positive side of things that it makes up for it.
06:34And the prior relationship with Nick, I think, certainly helps.
06:37Nick being, you know, Nick, I think, wants to see guys, Nick lives in a world where the
06:42guys who have succeeded were genuine grinders.
06:45Guys that are kind of obsessed, and maybe really have to consciously remind themselves
06:50about the work-life balance and all that.
06:52That's the kind of guy I'm guessing he wants.
06:55And all the things we've seen suggest that that's what Nick Kaley is like.
06:58I think it'll be interesting, too, as we wake up this morning, we're here on Radio Row,
07:03thanks to Flight by Yingling, Payne and Pendergast, breaking down the Nick Kaley hire for the
07:06Houston Texans.
07:07He's the new offensive coordinator, now former Rams tight ends coach and passing game coordinator.
07:14You know, a former tight ends coach is interesting.
07:16You know, that was not a great position group for the Texans last year.
07:20And I know his job is not to get in the tight end room and micromanage that room.
07:25But I would imagine he's had some good tight ends that have played for him, and specifically
07:28at his most recent stop, he's turned Tyler Higby into a pretty good tight end.
07:32Or he's been part of Tyler Higby's development.
07:34I don't want to give him all the credit for it, but he was a tight ends coach.
07:38You know, so that's a room like Dalton Schultz needs to get back to, at the very least, doing
07:43what he was doing in 2023, more so than 2024.
07:46Cade Stover, you've got a young tight end that the team is very high on in that room.
07:50Brevin Jordan tweeted two, that was it.
07:56Just two Joe Cool shade wearing emojis.
08:00If you're, if when you're on a team and a guy that is either the coordinator or the
08:06head coach is also, has been a position coach of yours, it does feel like you're, you get
08:11excited about it.
08:12You get excited about it.
08:13This guy understands my struggles.
08:14This guy's going to take care of the position.
08:16Not even me personally, but just, he understands what the tight ends go through.
08:20The thing that I've liked about him as a tight ends coach, just very generally, is that there's
08:26a guy, when you're the tight ends coach, you're involved in run blocking, you're involved
08:31in pass protection, you're involved in the passing game, and you're kind of, you're the,
08:36it's the one position where it's involved in every aspect of the game pretty heavily.
08:42So when it comes to the run game and the offensive line and everything that goes along
08:46with that, he was the tight ends coach in New England for seven years.
08:50And you know, he can't take credit for Gronk's success, but he's seen the way an offense
08:56with really good tight ends operates.
08:58And then you go to the Rams and I feel like they've gotten the absolute most out of Tyler
09:02Higbee.
09:03Yes.
09:04So there's that part of it on paper looks really good.
09:08To make a very loose comparison, Andy Reid, Andy Reid was a guy who was a tight ends coach
09:13for five or six years, then was a quarterbacks coach for a couple seasons, was never the
09:18offensive coordinator, and then became the head coach of the Eagles out of nowhere.
09:23Yep.
09:24People were very skeptical of that move, and they ended up having pretty good offenses.
09:26Yeah, they were pretty good.
09:27So if all he can do, if he's only as good as Andy Reid, I'll be cool with that.
09:31That's all.
09:32That's the only bar.
09:33That's the only expectation.
09:34That's fine with me.
09:35And then I think, too, the staff is interesting.
09:39I think there's two questions about the staff.
09:42One is now what happens with Gerard Johnson.
09:45It sounds like the possession arrow's pointed towards most of the guys staying, but it's
09:50an interesting dynamic that you got two guys on the staff, actually, Gerard Johnson and
09:54Bill Lazor.
09:55They'd interviewed for the very position that Nick Kaley got.
09:58Right.
09:59So that's a, I suppose it could be an awkward dynamic if you make it awkward.
10:03I'll tell you what.
10:05I think that always comes down to personalities of the guys, because everybody at the beginning
10:10can say, like, oh, no, there'll be no hard feelings.
10:12But then it's when push comes to shove, is this a guy that genuinely knows how to keep
10:16his mouth shut and be a good soldier and everything, even if there's disagreements and you don't
10:20get petty about it?
10:21I think both those guys are like that.
10:23I mean, I know for a fact that Bill Lazor is like that, just because I know him personally.
10:28And that's where Lazor's old school in regards of, like, the boss is the boss, and I'm not
10:33going to second guess him or anything like that.
10:35I'm going to be a really good soldier for that guy.
10:37And we know Gerard Johnson and the way he operates.
10:40I think with Gerard, I saw a bunch of people say like, whoa, that's going to be, boy, Gerard's
10:45going to be PO'd about that because this guy doesn't have any, this guy doesn't even have
10:49a different resume.
10:50Like, no, he has a much different resume.
10:52Like Gerard's, Gerard has not been in the league that long at all.
10:56So you know, Gerard is still relatively young in terms of full-time coaching experience.
11:01So I would be surprised if either of those guys felt overly put out by it.
11:07They might be personally disappointed they didn't get the job.
11:10But I don't think that would be an obstacle to keep going.
11:11Kaley's a grinder, man.
11:12He was at seven different schools before he got here.
11:16He was in college for a long, long time, coaching in college for a long, long time.
11:21I think the other thing for me, Seth, is what's the solution on the offensive line?
11:25And there seems to be rumblings that Cole Popovich could get promoted from assistant
11:29O-line coach to full-time O-line coach.
11:32It's worth noting, he was in the building in New England with Nick Casario, with Nick
11:37Kaley from 2016 through 2020.
11:41He was coaching, he was an assistant, just coaching assistant for a couple of years.
11:45And then he was the assistant running backs coach, co-offensive line coach, was out of
11:49the NFL for a while and then came back with the Texans in 2023.
11:52The only question I would have about Cole Popovich is that, yes, he was the assistant
11:57offensive line coach, so there's only so much that he can really do.
12:03The question I would have is, all right, he was the assistant O-line coach.
12:06The assistant coach is, the assistant position coach is, that's a guy who can have a huge
12:12effect on people in terms of technique and working with guys on their footwork and things
12:17like that.
12:18And there were a lot of things the offensive line did this year that were just fundamentally
12:22bad from a basic technique perspective.
12:25There were things that good high school offensive line coaches might have been looking at and
12:29wondering, why exactly is this, why is this guy's shoulders perpendicular to the line
12:35of scrimmage so often?
12:38And that's something that, whatever about Popovich's explanation is for that, you got
12:43to sell out your former boss a little bit in the interview and say, like, listen, you
12:46know, they were just, this is why, or maybe there was something systemically in terms
12:52of the way Slowick wanted them.
12:55To operate, question with Popovich.