I've defended Nick Caserio a lot on here, and in general, I think he has done a good job. HOWEVER, the way that the offensive line has been handled from a personnel perspective has been atrocious and I can't defend it at all. I don't disagree with trading Tunsil. However, the personnel moves made afterwards are remarkably bad. Going into a season depending on Laken Tomlinson and Jake Andrews is bonkers. We seem to have wasted high draft picks on Kenyon Green, Juice Scruggs and Blake Fisher. And, I like Ersery and want him to succeed, but expecting a second round pick who most scouts saw as a right tackle to come in right away and start at left tackle was a recipe for failure, especially considering our inability to develop offensive linemen.

We'll probably never know the answer, but I sure would like to know how much Caserio had to do with the Nick Caley hire. I was originally okay with it because I thought he would run a McVay-like Rams offense. Nope, this is just more and more of the Patriot way, which nobody from New England seems to understand that it doesn't work unless Tom Brady is running it. It's mind boggling to me that you fire one of the worst offensive line coaches in the country and promote his assistant coach? What do you expect to happen?

This season is over. You won't catch the Colts, and barring a massive change of direction, you aren't going to make the playoffs either. The offense is as bad as anything I can remember seeing in the NFL.

I don't know where to go just yet. For all of you who want to fire everybody, I don't think that is right either. I think Caserio has done enough good that he gets another season, but it needs to be clear that improving the offensive line is far and away the most important task this season. If the offensive line looks anything next year as it looks this season, he can take his vest somewhere else.

I don't think firing DeMeco is the solution just yet either, but he has to get the offense right.

Now, they should have left Caley on the tarmac in Seattle. He sucks. He needs to show this season that he knows how to run an offense. This will be hard to do with this line, but if we look this hopeless all year, I don't think you have a choice. It might be time for Jerrod to get a try. He can't do any worse, I don't think. I'm not a fan of Mike McDaniel (weird guy), but he has had success an OC. There has to be someone out there with a track record of running an offense that they can bring in.

The worst part to me is that they are turning CJ Stroud into David Carr. As a rookie, Stroud looked like the next great NFL QB. But since then, he has been beat up so much, that his level of play is declining. If they can't figure out how to protect him and at least have a somewhat functional run game, he will end up being a shadow of the player he could have been.

Yup. Bill is doing a hatchet job to his legacy right now. Shouldn't have taken that NC job, and went into broadcasting....haha, half-joking. He's not THAT bad, if you've seen him in relaxed settings like that "2 Bills" ESPN special, he's obviously very knowledgeable. Not a play by play color guy, but could be decent used sparingly on one of the pregame shows.

Drunken Overseas Betttor said:

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so the rest of the schedule is.

vs. San Fran
vs. Denver
vs. Jax
@ Ten
vs. Buffalo
@ Indy
@ KC
vs. Arizona
vs. Vegas
@ San Diego
vs. Indy

I see 4 wins in there?
6-11 finish?
that 16 day jaunt of Bills, Colts, Chiefs from November 20th-December 7th should be fun.

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Way too much season left, but I'm good with trading what you can and positioning for the draft. This team isn't winning anything with a decent schedule, and that one has at least 5 more losses.

Snake, I respect that you want to hold on to Caserio, but I strongly disagree. He is the primary problem. His OC selection, his OL coach, his OL. Its all a disaster and I think he is responsible. I see no basis to think it will get better with him in the same position. Caserio gotta go.

When is Caserio's contract up? Is he trying to get himself fired like BoB?

Caserio was hired in January 2021

to a 6-year contract I believe

Agree to disagree. I think he has been quite average at best. The OC and OL coaches are old Patriots buddies. I think thats not a coincidence.

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You're assuming Nick was behind the Caley hire and the OL coach promotion. I'm assuming he pushed for that, but doesn't DeMeco hire his own staff?

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If you'll buy that I'll throw the Golden Gate in free.

Demeco hired those guys like David Culley earned his HC gig.

5 Dollar Footlong said:

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25Lighters said:

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Time to tank. Unless we play the Titans we won't be favored the rest of the year.

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How's this year's crop of Iowa State wide receivers looking?

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Haha for real. Between the three of them they combine for an impressive 60 yards receiving per game.

I'm 100% out on Casserio and already thinking through potential GM candidates. I like what's been going on in Detroit, maybe look at their assistant GM.

I don't think DeMeco is going anywhere. I could see a "required" staff overhaul in the offseason IF we want to be serious about winning games.

The problem is, I don't think we want to be serious.

I don't think a lot is broken. Clearly the defense is not. Special teams looks okay.

CJ had some moments this season that look like rookie CJ, then the next play he is being met in the backfield. They need a better OL and weapons for him. Problem is good OL don't hit the market and drafting rookies has a learning curve.

I'm concerned that the fix is again a multi-year fix, but this is wear Caserio needs to earn his money. Go trade for a good OL now, or else just be honest with fans its next year+ until the offense is where they want it to be.

I generally don't think spending big money in free agency is the way to go but it's pretty clear no one in this franchise has any idea how to evaluate offensive line talent. I have virtually no faith in them solving this through the draft or identifying under appreciated talent. Go pay (or trade) for a known commodity.

Snake Jazz said:

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You're assuming Nick was behind the Caley hire and the OL coach promotion. I'm assuming he pushed for that, but doesn't DeMeco hire his own staff?

Nick drafted Stingley, Nico, CJ, Will, Tank, Kamari, Pitre, and Bullock, and traded a pervert for a king's ransom. He cleaned up the financial hell that Bill O'Brien left us in. He got Easterby out of the building. He has done a very good job, excerpt for the damn offensive line. He has screwed that up royally.

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For all the good Caserio has done, I have a hard time supporting him with the offensive line. I can't figure out if the personnel staff has no ability to evaluate OL talent or if the coaching staff has no idea what they're doing when it comes to development because they've drafted guys and played them. In either case it's professionally negligent to put a bad offensive line out there regardless of whether you're trying to develop a young QB on a rookie contract or if you have a veteran on the field. The OL is such an issue that I don't know if Stroud is good or not, if it was a grade you'd have to consider giving him an incomplete because of what he's playing behind. I was optimistic about this team 2 years ago but I have a tough time thinking they'll ever turn it around. The offense is just boring and sad to watch and doesn't remotely approach what the defense does.

JCA1 said:

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Kinda crazy what a roller coaster the last 4 years has been. From an absolute bottom feeder that looked to be lightyears away from competing for anything, to, almost overnight, one of the most promising young teams, to looking completely lost again. Legitimately don't know what to think or who is good at their job.

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This is the most frustrating part of everything. Find a QB on a rookie deal that shows early on that he has the potential to take us places we've never been. Bring in defensive players and FAs to complement that. Defense performs and offense falls flat on its face for over a season now…

Everything about that is frustrating. 3 guys blocking 1 guy. CJ still with time. Dalton breaking into coverage. No one (in the picture at least) open. CJ likely backpedaling instead of running into the open field

Texan_Aggie said:

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It's stuff like this that is so frustrating.

On the bright side we locked that one dude down!

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CJ also appears to have rolled right but there doesn't appear to be any receivers on that side of the field and the one receiver you can see looks like he's about to make his break to the left. Does not appear to be a play with a ton of options.

JCA1 said:

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Texan_Aggie said:

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It's stuff like this that is so frustrating.

On the bright side we locked that one dude down!

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CJ also appears to have rolled right but there doesn't appear to be any receivers on that side of the field and the one receiver you can see looks like he's about to make his break to the left. Does not appear to be a play with a ton of options.

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CJ isn't very bright! Wonderlic scores MATTER!

redag06 said:

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JCA1 said:

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Texan_Aggie said:

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It's stuff like this that is so frustrating.

On the bright side we locked that one dude down!

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CJ also appears to have rolled right but there doesn't appear to be any receivers on that side of the field and the one receiver you can see looks like he's about to make his break to the left. Does not appear to be a play with a ton of options.

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CJ isn't very bright! Wonderlic scores MATTER!

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I'm sure it's situationally very important to you given the caps. Unfortunately it hasn't been used by the NFL in about a decade.

They use a S2 Cognition test which differs from the erstwhile general intelligence exam. Are you sure you should be pointing fingers?

https://www.wsn.com/nfl/s2-cognition-test/

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. . , The S2 test replaced the now-out-of-date Wonderlic test, which was used to determine general intelligence
. . ,
The S2 is seen as a more comprehensive evaluation of a football player because it measures football-related skills . . ,
The NFL does not require prospects to take the S2, and not every team uses it in their evaluations.
. , ,
The S2 test made its way to the NFL in 2015 in place of the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic was more similar to the SAT, as participants answered 50 math, vocabulary, and reasoning questions in 12 minutes. . . .

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I think that's the one Stroud flunked, redag just didn't remember the name of it

I don't put much into the text. CJ actually had a great game given what he's working with. He would be an easy top 10 qb with shanahan, McVay, Seattle, etc.

Ag_07 said:

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CJ is much closer to mediocre than he is great.

They're going to have a helluva time deciding if he's worth another contract.

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What has he shown to make it a tough decision? It's an easy decision. You don't pay big money for him. If he leaves, he leaves. If you give him big money, you set the franchise back for years.

IrishAg said:

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Texan_Aggie said:

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I don't put much into the text. CJ actually had a great game given what he's working with. He would be an easy top 10 qb with shanahan, McVay, Seattle, etc.

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CJ did not have a great game with what he's working with. He keeps getting passed up on the responsibilities list, but he's right up there. Do I think this offense design is good, nope. Do I think the line is good, nope. But do I think CJ really doesn't know what he's doing out there with this offense. Yup. There is no pre-snap recognition of the blitz to make adjustments (things we're doing here in aggieland), there's no shifting of protection schemes, and there is no awareness of pressure. He always looks surprised when someone is coming on the blitz, and then starts to panic and forgets to move where he should.

I see people say, he's getting gun shy like Carr and that's why he's struggling and it's not his fault, but damn, you're getting paid millions in your 3rd year on the way to hopefully generational money after this year. Yet....I don't see any growth on his part. He has the same tendencies that he's had since his first year, which is getting him killed right now because defenses are freaking good at finding weaknesses. This isn't the NFL 20 years ago, players are responsible for finding the extra work, training, and programs to become elite in the offeseason.

This is pretty much a program failure, DeMeco doesn't have the ability to not be friends with these guys, and doesn't have someone on the staff to help him understand how to grow as a coach. This is going to keep getting worse unless someone steps up and finally tells themself I need to get better, and I need to do the work to accomplish that.

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You raise some good points.

While I would prefer my QB to be obviously intelligent, I didn't think it was a requirement. There have been a bunch of hall of fame QBs who clearly weren't Rhodes scholars. However, your point about how advanced defenses have gotten with analytics makes me wonder if that is changing. Teams now go to great lengths to identify your weaknesses and exploit them. That, then, requires a counter, which, for a QB, generally involves his mind. So far, CJ hasn't shown he is capable of that (although his coaches and teammates aren't exactly helping him either).

There are definitely a lot of factors involved in believing this was a good team without that much real evidence. Part of that problem is history. When the Texans have been good in the past, it's been at the same level almost every time - good enough to win the South and a wild card game and then usually totally overmatched. That's what happened the last 2 years and we all assumed it would continue.

So in 2023. That team still started off 0-2 and after a terrible loss t Carolina was 3-4.
Then a streak of lightning in the bottle. Beating Tampa with 6 seconds left; beating the Bengals with no time left; limping by a terrible Arizona team despite 3 Stroud INTs; avoiding a tie with Tennessee in a godawful Case Keenum-Will Levis matchup. They easily could have lost any or all of those games, but instead got 4 wins, then got a really great victory over the Colts to win the division. They get to the playoffs, annihilate the Browns, then lose to Baltimore. 10-7 season, huge positives.

Last year, same record, worse team, scored 372, grave up 372. Started out 6-2 with one really great win (Buffalo) , Went 4-5 down the stretch, losing to all the contenders (BAL, KC, DET) along with ridiculous losses to TEN and the Jets (again). For a second straight year played a train wreck in the wild card round (Chargers) so it seems like a good season before they bow out.

This year - Decided to rebuild entire offense with unproven OLs, only 1 WR with a rapport with your QB, a coordinator with no experience, and your 5-star running back nowhere in sight. Bad personnel + bad play-calling = impossible to move the ball.

If Woody Marks wasn't having a pretty nice rookie year and if Dalton Schultz didn't look he actually cared this season, this would be the worst offense in the league. As it is, according to Pro-Football Reference, they are 29th in passing (ahead of Titans, Ravens, Jets), 27th in rushing, and 30th overall. The only way to 'get better' is to get dramatically better OL play. I have no idea when or even if that can happen with the guys they have.

I don't think CJ is an elite processor by any stretch. I think his arm is more than adequate in terms of accuracy, delivery, velocity, etc.. I don't know anything about his leadership or other intangibles that might lead to some contract extension. My novice and completely unscientific and unintelligent guess is the problem is around 65/35 OL issues vs QB issue.

Right - he makes some great plays out of the pocket and I don't think his rookie year was a fluke. I just don't want him to become the next Baker/Darnold/Geno/Goff once he leaves.