New Texans head coach David Culley is facing the football version of the perfect storm.
His team is ranked last in the NFL Power Rankings and drama reigns across the organization.
Yet this isn’t of his doing.
Culley, the only Black head coach hired during the offseason, helms a downward spiraling franchise.
Everyone knows it, including Culley.
JJ Watt is gone.
Deshaun Watson faces sexual assault and misconduct charges and could be suspended or traded.
The team traded defensive end, Shaq Lawson, to the Jets on Sunday and outside of Watson, the franchise lacks star power and a recognizable leader.
This is the situation David Culley faces before the season starts in two weeks.
Unfortunately for many Black NFL head coaches, it’s a familiar position.
The Cleanup Man Role of Black NFL Head Coaches
Black NFL head coaches helm the ship during vicious storms, navigating it through punishing waves. When it finally starts to righten, white coaches are brought in to reap the benefits.
And more times than not, those Black coaches aren’t given a second opportunity to captain another ship.
Jim Caldwell coached the Colts to the Super Bowl in the 2009 season. He moved to Detroit and over four years led them to three winning seasons.
But the Lions released Caldwell and hired Matt Patricia. Patricia was horrible, eventually fired, and returned to the Patriots.
Caldwell hasn’t had a coaching job since 2017.
Anthony Lynn had a 33-31 record with the Chargers. During his four-year tenure, they made the playoffs, found their superstar in Justin Herbert, fought through an injury-plagued season last year, and showed promise for 2021.
The Chargers fired Lynn and replaced him with former Rams’ defensive coordinator, Brandon Staley. Staley was a linebackers coach for 3 years before the Rams hired him.
Lynn is now the offensive coordinator for the Lions.
Todd Bowles got off to a fast start with the Jets in 2015, guiding the team to a 10-5 record. Then poor drafts and personnel decisions hampered Bowles, and the team regressed.
Before the 2017 season, management parted ways with veterans Nick Mangold, Darrelle Revis, Brandon Marshall, David Harris, and Eric Decker, and lost Matt Forte to injuries and age. The moves spelled Bowles’ demise and he was fired a year later.
Last year, Bowles won the Super Bowl as Tampa’s defensive coordinator.
A rarity is the Dolphins’ Brian Flores.
When Flores took over, the Dolphins had two straight losing seasons under Gase. The team was in disarray, morale had crumbled and the locker room was lost.
Flores took the job of cleanup man and did just that.
Despite an 0-7 start to the 2019 season, the team didn’t panic. They finished 5-11, including an emotional win over the Patriots in their season finale.
In 2020, Flores and GM Chris Grier made roster moves and accumulated valuable future draft picks. They finished the season 10-6, acquired weapons for Tua Tagovailoa in the draft, and have a promising 2021.
Miami’s management and ownership believe in him. They have given him the time and support to pull Miami up from the disastrous years of Adam Gase and their investment is paying dividends.
Unfortunately, Culley doesn’t have that path or luxury for the Texans are, to put it plainly, a mess.
The Houston Texans Backstory
In 1999, the NFL awarded a franchise to Houston businessman and philanthropist, Bob McNair.
Since their inaugural season in 2002, the team has had relative success.
They have six playoff appearances, going 4-6 in those games. Over the last two decades, teams such as the Bears, Browns, and Raiders, haven’t had that type of success.
But on the tail end of head coach Bill O’Brien’s tenure, the organization began its descent.
In 2017, McNair was ripped for his “inmates running the prison” description of players kneeling. He apologized and then reneged, further inflaming the situation.
That same year, GM Rick Smith took a leave of absence to care for his ailing wife.
In 2018, McNair died. A year later, Smith’s wife passed away as well.
Those tumultuous years are when a ravenous and dividing cancer flourished under the assumed leadership of former Patriots’ staff members Bill O’Brien and Jack Easterby.
Easterby’s NFL ascent is extremely unusual.
He rose from part-time academic tutor to character coach at the University of South Carolina. He transitioned to the NFL as a life coach and chaplain for the Chiefs and Patriots.
Sports Illustrated wrote a revealing feature on Easterby where team insiders described an atmosphere of mistrust and complained that Easterby, the Texans’ EVP of Football Operations, was unqualified for his position.
O’Brien’s leadership skills have always been questioned. His shocking trade of De’Andre Hopkins in 2019 attests to that fact.
A year later, the team started 0-4 and O’Brien was fired.
O’Brien’s rise to power was detrimental to the team. Players like Ed Reed, who was with the Texans in 2013, saw it clearly.
“The ‘Houston way’, so to say that they called it. And it’s not the city, it’s the organization at the time,” said Reed. “And they had that old school mentality. You had coaches talking reckless to guys and I’m like, ‘As a grown man, how do you let that happen?'”
Although tragedy opened the door for mismanagement, the fact remains that it has retained squatters’ rights in Houston, both in the locker room and the boardroom.
Captain David Culley
Enter David Culley.
The 65-year-old coach has a four-decade-long coaching career and is a history maker.
In the 1970s, he was Vanderbilt’s first Black quarterback.
When he was hired in January, Culley was the NFL’s oldest, first-time head coach.
But Culley is experienced and well respected.
“David is just a genuine guy,” said Ravens head coach John Harbaugh in a text to ESPN’s Ed Werder. “He will be who he is every day. Has been that guy every day of his career. I’m thrilled for him. Great person. Genuine. Full of energy.”
But Culley is another Black NFL head coach at the bow of the ship entering a perfect storm.
Defined as “an unusually severe storm that results from a rare combination of meteorological phenomena”, it’s a disastrous situation that destroys all in its path.
That combination of destructive phenomena has settled in Houston.
Mistrust in management.
One superstar released, another moved in a ridiculous trade.
A massive rift erupting this summer between the team and Watson caused by new GM Nick Caserio, also a former Patriot.
The locker room is reeling.
Watson is possibly on the way out either by a trade or suspension.
The Texans have no clear, definitive plan to address their future. They seem more content to try and become the Patriots rather than build their own organization.
These factors make up the raging, unforgiving storm confronting David Culley.
He’s Captain Billy Tyne and the Texans are his Andrea Gale.
Let’s hope this movie doesn’t repeat itself for Culley’s sake.
