Poll: Who brought the most to the 2023 Houston Texans?

Head coach, quarterback, EDGE, coordinator?

While the villains of the past are easy to spot: Jack Easterly, BO’B, Cal McNair, [NAME REDACTED], [NAME REDACTED2], it’s not quite so easy to point at the 1 person most responsible for the success of the team in the last calendar year.

Who do you think it is?

CAL MCNAIR

The face of the family who owns the Houston Texans, the man often vilified in the past for apparent lack of competency, abundance of apathy and his Minecraft skillz, Cal seems to have had a renaissance of sorts over the last 12-15 months. He no longer seems to interject himself in football decisions, stopped bungling pressers and is seldom seen without his far-more-charismatic wife Hannah. She steals the show every time.

NICK CASERIO

The subject of many a Cal faux pas, Caserio’s entrance to the Houston Texans was likely the most drama-laced, soap opera-ey hiring in recent NFL GM history. But, man, it sure seems like it was worth it. Caserio cleared all of BO’B’s pisspoor contracts, opened up a ton of salary cap space, drafted a lot of awesome young players and helped bring in Demeco Ryans. He certainly deserves some credit for the H-Town Turnaround.

DEMECO RYANS

While McNair and Caserio brought Coach Ryans to the Texans, it sure seems the former linebacker’s impact on this organization’s culture has been seismically impactful. Ryans reinvigorated the veteran players, brought the best out of younger ones like Derek Stingley Jr. and Nico Collins, and has this team overachieving in more ways than one. He was the sort of player you wanted on your team, now he’s the sort of coach you want leading it.

BOBBY SLOWIK

While Slowik is likely the least deserving of the top spot in this poll, he does deserve credit for engineering and overseeing a Texans offense that never truly seemed out of a game. They came from behind more than once, and the offensive output was vastly increased. The 2022 Texans gained 283.5 yards per game and averaged just 17 points. The 2023 edition, under Slowik, gained 342.4 yards and scored an average 22.2 points. Hard not to acknowledge that as a huge reason for their 2023 fortunes.

C.J. STROUD

Amidst all the S2 Cognition testing drama and “Ohio State Quarterbacks Fail in the NFL” narratives, Stroud came out and lit the league on fire. When all was said and done, the rising star had one of the greatest seasons by a rookie quarterback in pro football history. And, he did it while missing 2 games due to the concussion protocol. After just 1 season, Stroud’s 4108 passing yards put him in 5th place all-time on the Houston Texans career passing yards list behind Matt Schaub, [NAME REDACTED2], David Carr and Davis Mills.

WILL ANDERSON JR

While the other 1st round draft pick of the 2023 Houston Texans didn’t make as big a splash as Stroud, he still paid huge dividends, helping to transform the Texans front-7 back into a formidable force. Anderson also missed 2 games due to injury, but ended his rookie season with 29 solo tackles, 10 tackles for loss and 7 sacks. The young man also ate up blocks, forced opposing offenses back into the arms of fellow lineman Jonathan Greenard and brought new fire to the Texans D.

In the end, football is a team game and the team itself deserves the credit. And, while it’s easy to turn this into a popularity contest, let’s take a minute and logically assert who you believe pushed this team over the line from league laughing stock to AFC Division Champions.