Payne and Pendergast react to Texans hiring Nick Caley as offensive coordinator

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

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.

Transcript

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.

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