As the Houston Texans struggle to find anything effective and consistent this season, fans are growing more and more impatient. The demand for change is growing louder and louder, but making a change for the sake of change would more likely do more harm than good
General Manager Nick Caserio is building the Texans in a similar way to the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets which is through the draft. Drafting and developing young players can be incredibly frustrating. These players bring great excitement on draft day and great heartburn on game day, but the reward can be great if there is patience.
The current roster has a healthy amount of young talent with a few veterans thrown in the mix to help with the development of the players. Sure, as this young group of Dameon Pierce, Nico Collins, Kenyon Green, Derek Stingley Jr. and Jalen Pitre goes through the growing pains of playing in the NFL at a young age, guys like Brandin Cooks and Laremy Tunsil are vital for their growth.
Having the talent to play in the NFL and becoming an NFL ready player isn’t the same thing. Dominate players in college rarely hit the field as a rookie with that same domination. It takes coaches and veteran players to mold these players into what they can be.
Trading veterans and firing coaches as is a common “demand” right now from fans. Fans want veterans traded for draft capital and coaches fired because they haven’t achieved some unrealistic level for this team. What many don’t seem to understand is each veteran and each coach has a role in the “Caserio Plan”.
Some will say, “Nick hasn’t said there’s a plan.”
While true, the plan is fairly obvious. He’s not spending huge amounts in free agency, he’s handing out long contracts and he’s trying to stay young. So, what’s wrong with that?
The issue for Texans fans is 20 years of average at best football. What fans need to understand is, things are changing. You can’t look at the rebuild as 20 years of failure. You can even say Caserio has had two years and we should be further along in the plan. This is truly year one of the rebuild.
Charley Casserly left a mess for Rick Smith who left a mess for Bill O’Brien who made a bigger mess and handed it off to Caserio. To clean up this mess, it’s going to take some time. The best plan is not to throw a bunch of crap against the wall and hope. The best plan is to stick to the plan.