Houston Texans: Who is David Culley similar to in coaching style?

Does Houston Texans head coach David Culley bring up similarities to an MLB coach?

David Culley was hired by the Houston Texans in late January after the Texans performed a very in-depth coaching search of several potential candidates. Culley’s name appeared out of nowhere after being an assistant coach in the NFL since 1994 when he got his start as a wide receivers coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Culley has bounced around the league ever since under such head coaches as Andy Reid and John Harbaugh.

When listening to people speak about Culley you always hear how great of a leader he is, how much players respect him and enjoy working with him. Culley was brought in to help shift the culture of the Houston Texans and aide General Manager Nick Caserio in righting the ship of the Texans locker room during one of the largest rebuilds in franchise history.

While he isn’t the flashy hire like Robert Saleh or Eric Bieniemy like Texans fans had hoped for, Culley does parallel in a way of a hire that was made recently in Houston for another major sports franchise in the midst of turmoil … Dusty Baker.

Baker was hired by the Houston Astros after the whole cheating scandal landed A.J. Hinch out of a job as the Astros manager. Baker wasn’t the Sean McVay kind-of-hype coach, but someone new General Manager James Click could rely on to help mend things with the players, and propel the team back to its rightful place: competing for a World Series.

While Baker has years of managerial experience and Culley is a brand new head coach, they both have a few things in common that the Texans desperately needed in a head coach.

Both Culley and Baker are very respected by players around their respective leagues, and are examples of a “player’s coach”. Both have been around their leagues for years and have been a part of playoff runs. They know what it takes to build a championship-caliber team, both on the field and in the locker room.

Both can command a team with respect of their peers, and show up every day to do one thing, and that is to win ball games.

It was a pleasant surprise to watch how well the Houston Texans were coached on Sunday’s victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, something this team has lacked for a long time. Congratulations to Coach Culley on the first of hopefully many victories of his head coaching time in Houston.