PALM BEACH, Fla. – Nick Caley paid a significant amount of dues during his climb up the football ladder to emerge as the Texans new offensive coordinator.
From his time as a student assistant at John Carroll University, to the knowledge he gained from former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels to collaborating with Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, Caley became a strategist versed in two different offensive systems.
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Now, Caley, 42, is applying what he’s learned as he takes over the Texans offense as the replacement for Bobby Slowik.
While working for McVay in Los Angeles, Caley coaches the tight ends and was the Rams’ passing game coordinator. Although he’ll be a rookie play-caller, Caley has been preparing for the demands of the job, adapting on the fly, building game plans, working with quarterback C.J. Stroud and marrying his strategic focus to the Texans’ personnel.
“I think the great thing for Nick is he was always preparing to take those next steps while still being totally present in his role,” McVay told KPRC 2 at the NFL owners meetings. “I go back to his foundation starting with coach Belichick, the amount of ball you’re exposed to, doing ball the right way, he was ready. He sees the game through an All-22 lens. I think he’s going to do an excellent job. He’s been preparing himself based on the way he approaches every single day. I think their background, these guys see the game from a big-picture lens.”
When Caley was a younger position coach in New England, he was tasked with coaching two colorful, talented veteran tight ends in Rob Gronkowski and Martellus Bennett and earned two Super Bowl rings.
Caley, a former coach at John Carroll, the same alma mater as Texans general manager Nick Caserio along with pro personnel director D.J. Debick, special teams coordinator Frank Ross and senior offensive assistant-passing game specialist Jerry Schuplinski, became even more advanced as a coach the past two seasons working for McVay.
Caley is overseeing an offense headlined by Stroud, a former NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, Pro Bowl wide receiver Nico Collins and Pro Bowl running back Joe Mixon. The primary task for the Texans’ offense is getting better pass protection for Stroud, who was sacked 52 times during the regular season last year and 11 more times during the playoffs. Run blocking was inconsistent, too. The Texans overhauled their offensive line, trading five-time Pro Bowl left tackle Laremy Tunsil and former first-round guard Kenyon Green, cutting right guard Shaq Mason and signing left tackle Cam Robinson, left guard Laken Tomlinson and trading for guard Ed Ingram.
The approach from Caley shapes up as ultra-detailed and aggressive, and he’ll be backstopped by senior offensive assistant Bill Lazor, a former offensive coordinator with the Chicago Bears and Cincinnati Bengals, Schuplinkski, assistant head coach and running backs coach Danny Barrett, tight ends coach Jake Moreland, receivers coach and passing game coordinator Ben McDaniels.
“Nick has an infectious energy and enthusiasm,” McVay said. “He’s going to bring it every single day. Jerry has got a great demeanor. I think they’ll balance each other out. He’ll be a great addition to be in that quarterback room with C.J.. and some of the other great coaches they have. I’m fired up for Nick. He’ll do a great job. I think he and DeMeco are really great personality fits and fired up for my guy, Nick.”
It’s an ultra-successful coaching foundation that gave the Texans a ton of confidence in hiring Caley, a first-time offensive coordinator and play-caller. They interviewed Caley, Texans quarterbacks coach Jerrod Johnson, Texans senior offensive assistant Bill Lazor, Syracuse offensive coordinator Jeff Nixon, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterbacks coach Thad Lewis, Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich, Washington Commanders assistant head coach/passing game coordinator Brian Johnson and new Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski.
“Nick is very highly thought of in the league, has varying levels of experience in different systems,” Caserio said at the NFL scouting combine. “He started on the defensive side of the ball. Sometimes, you have a different perspective. He’s smart. He’s got a great attitude. He works really hard. He’s very flexible. He’s adaptable. He’s worked with a lot of different types of players and personalities.
“The big thing for Nick is figuring out our team, what do we have coming back, what’s the best thing for those players. We’ll have conversations and talk about our team and players constantly. We want to make sure we’re matching it up and have a similar vision. For the opportunity Nick has earned himself, right now, it’s about working and putting the foundation in place, going through playbook installation, terminology so when the players come in April we’re ready to go.”
Readiness is a recurring theme with Caley.
The Ohio native and St. Thomas Aquinas graduate played football at Walsh University before working as a student assistant at John Carroll University, a Division III powerhouse where Caserio was a record-setting quarterback throwing passes to McDaniels.
Caley grew up in Canton, Ohio in a football-oriented household just three miles away from the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He looked up to Thom McDaniels, a high school football legend in Ohio who’s the father of Josh McDaniels and Texans receivers coach and passing game coordinator Ben McDaniels.
“High school football was big,” Caley said. “At about the age of nine, I knew I wanted to be a coach. My dream early on was to be a high school football coach in Stark County, Ohio, similar to Thom McDaniels.
“I watched him at Camp McKinley as a kid growing up. I’ve always wanted to coach. It’s part of the fabric of my life and my dad took me to a lot of games as a kid.”
Before moving on to several stops as a college assistant coach at Florida Atlantic where he recruited Texans team captain and starting linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair working at Akron, Iowa State, Arkansas, Auburn and Eastern Illinois, Staley broke into the coaching ranks at John Carroll.
Working for Regis Scafe, the head coach at JCU, Caley built a reputation as someone who embraced any work assignment he could gets his hands on. Whenever he finished something in the recruiting department, he asked for more and more work to do. When he was taught how to do something, he learned it right away and didn’t make mistakes.
“He did a really good job as a student and we put him in charge of gameday visits,” Scafe said in a telephone interview with KPRC 2. “You’ve got to schedule them, talk to the parents, do the tours. Timing is big, and he took it on willingly. I look at where he is now and you’ve got really admire and respect what he did, the way his career has taken off. What he did in college, so many stops and, of course, what he’s done in the NFL, he really put in the time. He was always very efficient, very organized. No one has given him anything. He really deserved this.
“He worked his butt off. He has all the experience with the Patriots and the Rams. He coached Gronk, one of the greatest tight ends ever, and he did a good job. Look at his career, step by step. He’s ready. It’s amazing. He decided early on that he was going to go into coaching. With the Patriots, I think they slept in the office. Belichick would get guys in there and see if they’re good enough and if they work hard enough and understand enough. Then, they’ll give you a title. When he first went in there, he had no position to coach. They want to see what you are like under fire. Now having a chance to move up in your career and work for good people that makes a difference. He made the right choice. He knows Nick. And the Texans are the JCU of the South right now.”
Now, Caley takes over an offense in flux that regressed last season under Slowik.
Instead, they have hired Caley to rejuvenate an offense that dipped to 19th in scoring as they averaged 21.9 points per game and 22nd in total offense with an average of 319.7 yards per contest for a team that won its second consecutive division title under Ryans’ leadership.
The Texans’ offense regressed under Slowik, who struggled to make adjustments on the fly when his game plan wasn’t clicking, didn’t adapt the protection schemes to better protect Stroud, who was sacked eight times and hit 14 times overall in an AFC divisional round loss to the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, and had lost the confidence of the locker room, including key offensive players as well as now-former colleagues on the coaching staff, according to league sources.
“It was a very difficult decision,” Caserio said. “Bobby did a lot of great things for the organization, I have a lot of respect for him. We just felt this was the best thing for us. Demeco felt this was a decision we needed to make.”
Having a coach with Caley’s experience working in the creativity of the McVay system, an offshoot of the version of the West Coast offense first popularized by former San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh and adopted by Mike Shanahan and Kyle Shanahan, is regarded around the league as a positive for the Texans’ outlook.
There will be familiarity for Stroud, who will need to speak the same language from a scheme standpoint as Caley. Caley is expected to put his own personal stamp on an offense in need of an overhaul and some new tweaks and wrinkles.
What will the Texans run under Caley’s direction? What’s his vision? Is the offense going to have pieces of the Patriots and Rams’ schemes his background stems from in the NFL?
“It’s going to be Houston’s,” Caley said. “It’s going to be our scheme based on what we do. I don’t say that to throw any curveballs. It really is. As a first-time coordinator, I’m really excited to have the opportunity to evolve this scheme. It’s not going to be my spin, it’s going to be what’s best for our players.
“It’s always going to be what’s best for our players. We’re not pounding a square peg into a round hole. It’s going to be based on the strengths of our quarterback, the players and the guys on this team. That’s what it will always be designed around.”
Caley was hired by Ryans with input from Caserio and other key members of the organization, including consulting with players like Stroud during the process. Stroud was sacked 52 times to rank second in the NFL as he passed for 20 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in a drop-off from his NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year numbers of 23 touchdowns and five interceptions.
The Rams ranked 10th in passing offense last season as quarterback Matthew Stafford had 3,762 yards, 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
“He’s a special coach,” McVay said of Caley when he was contemplating interviewing for the Jets job he was viewed as a favorite to land if he had pursued the position that went to former Detroit Lions passing game coordinator Tanner Engstrand. “He’s done a great job for us. I love everything this guy is about. I think it’s really cool when these guys are offered opportunities to be able to elevate themselves and you want to evaluate all options.”
Source: Texans to interview Rams passing game coordinator-tight ends coach Nick Caley on Thursday
With the Rams, Caley became well-versed and instrumental to what McVay runs to capitalize on the skills of Stafford and wide receiver Puka Nacua.
Now, Caley takes over an offense in need of a boost.
“Very smart coach, very energetic guy and a great leader,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “Everyone I talked to throughout this process had nothing but awesome things to say about Nick and his approach. The players that he’s coached, there’s nothing but great reviews about Nick and how he has helped guys in their careers. It’s my job to take this organization to new heights, and I think hiring Nick will help us to get there.”
The best offensive player in franchise history, Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Andre Johnson, is a believer in Caley and how he can provide an edge for an offense that reached a crossroads last season with shortcomings in pass protection and a lack of adjustments to complex defensive schemes.
“I think it was a great hire,” Johnson told KPRC 2. “Very creative mind, just very excited. To see what we have right now for the organization, things have been trending in the right direction.”
From Johnson’s standpoint, he’s optimistic that the collaboration between Caley and Stroud will be mutually beneficial.
“I think it’s a great thing,” Johnson said. “(Caley) has worked with some great players and C.J. is a great player. I’m sure they’ll be picking each others’ brains. C.J. is a kid who really wants to learn. He’s always trying to do something to better himself. The future is bright for the organization. I can’t wait for next season.”
Caley emphasized that the Texans will tailor their weekly strategies as a “game plan team.” Those words echo what Belichick frequently said in New England and believed in to create a competitive edge.
“If that meant we were going to run duo and gap schemes and run the ball 45 times a game to win the game, then that’s what we were going to do,” Caley said. “If we had to run more perimeter plays, wide zone, and we felt that was going to give us the edge, we were going to do that. We’re going to ask our guys to do what they do well. But it’s going to be based on what we do to help us win. At the end of the day, we want to win, and that’s the priority for us.”
The feedback on Caley, who declined an interview request this year for the New York Jets’ offensive coordinator job and interviewed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after previously declining a $3 million a year offer last year from the Patriots to be their offensive coordinator, is strong, via league sources:
‘Smart guy’
‘Leadership qualities’
‘Really good relationship with Nick Caserio’
“Brings plenty of knowledge, knows how to build game plans from time with Sean McVay. Lots of good ideas’
‘I could definitely see him being an NFL head coach one day’
During a joint practice session in training camp last August with the Rams, Stroud expressed his admiration for McVay and his offense.
“I am a super fan of his,” Stroud said. “The type of scheme he runs, the way he calls it, the way he uses guys in motion, and just a whole bunch of different things. He seems like a good guy and he just had some tips and pointers and also showed me a lot of love which I appreciated.
“I appreciate him more than he knows, just watching film and getting better from the stuff that he does in that offense along with Matt and those guys. It is definitely an honor just to know that he knows me, which is dope.”
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com.
