Q&A with Texans chairman Cal McNair on GM, new coach and draft

PHOENIX — The NFL held its annual league meetings this week at the Arizona Biltmore as team owners came together to make new rules and enjoy the mountain views. Texans CEO and chairman Cal McNair and his wife Hannah McNair were among the many NFL dignitaries who gathered here.

Before leaving Wednesday, they spoke for a few minutes to discuss their excitement about the offseason, the draft and more.

The Texans were in a bad spot after last season. Fans were disappointed. And after finishing 3-14-1, they fired head coach Lovie Smith.

But since the Texans hired DeMeco Ryans on Jan. 31, season ticket renewals are at almost 90 percent, according to a team spokesperson. The Texans have sold almost 3,000 new season tickets, which is more than double this time last year. And they have also sold three times as many full-season suites versus this time last year.

“We really appreciate the fans for sticking with us and coming back and coming back strong,” McNair said. “We feel that excitement. We’re really wanting that alignment with the GM and the coach. And that’s what we’re seeing. That’s what the fans are feeling. We’re excited.

“We know we’ve got to win. So we can’t wait.”

He’s right. The Texans haven’t had a winning season since 2019. All eyes will be on general manager Nick Caserio, who was hired in 2021. While the Texans were in a terrible situation when he came aboard, they haven’t shown much improvement.

This season should be different. They’ve made solid additions in free agency and own 12 picks in next month’s draft, including the No. 2, No. 12 and No. 33 picks.

The NFL docked the Texans a fifth-round pick earlier this month after it discovered the franchise had paid for a gym membership for former quarterback Deshaun Watson. That was considered a salary-cap violation.

“We did argue and stated our case several times through the appeals process,” McNair said. “There was a little more informal appeal process before the formal appeals process, and I made several calls because I felt the penalty was too harsh for what happened. At the end of the day, it is what it is, and we’re looking forward to having all of this behind us and moving forward.”

Moving forward, the Texans hope to win more.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity:

Q: When prospects come in for top-30 visits, what questions do you want answered, and how do you involve yourself?

Cal McNair: I’ll meet with some of them. But how many I meet depends on scheduling. Typically, that’s more for coaches and staff to get to know them and get more interactions. They’ve already had some of them. And I’ve bumped into some of them. But I don’t have formalized interviews set up for them when they come in. That’s really for the coaches. And then I really want them to get to know the trainers and the nutritionists and the strength and conditioning staff. They are pretty busy. Each of those programs gets a little information about the player. If he comes in and treats a nutritionist poorly, then you’ll kind of know that. That will be part of the overall evaluation.

Q: You’re getting to know them, too. What’s most important to you?

CM: You want to know if they fit into the building and their commitment and their love of football. There’s a whole litany of things you get when you’re around someone.

Hannah McNair: I think one of the more impressive things I’ve seen from a player, not on our team, one of them wrote a thank-you note to Cal after meeting him. Handwritten. And I think that was just really impressive. That doesn’t happen a lot.

Q: It was reported that Will Levis and Anthony Richardson met with the Texans already. Will you be in on any of the quarterback interviews, and did you meet with either?

CM: I haven’t been on any of the onsite interviews yet.

HM: We met one of the quarterbacks at the Super Bowl. He came to the commissioners’ party. Really nice.

Q: What have been your impressions of Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud?

CM: After this meeting, I’ll visit with Nick more on the draft. But I’m looking to them to do the evaluations of those things and not really me so much. These guys have been scouted and studied since high school. They are phenomenal players, and they have been under scrutiny and have been watched for years. It’s not something Nick and the group woke up two weeks ago and said, ‘Hey, look at this guy from Alabama. Look at this guy from Ohio State.’ They’ve been looking at them for years. There’s a lot that’s known about them. But I rely on them on all those things. I’m not going to evaluate where a player should be.

Q: With respect to that, could one of these quarterbacks potentially be the face of the franchise?

CM: I think these quarterbacks in college nowadays have a lot of training behind the scenes from their schools and their PR departments and the media things. They come into it pretty well-trained and knowing what they want to say and can handle it themselves typically in front of the media and PR. That’s something you need out of the position. One of the many things you need out of them is leadership. You have to have the ability to start with. There are more than two that are above the bar, as far as ability, when you look at them. But where they fall in the draft is really up to the different teams and figuring out the market for that.

Q: Are you interested in moving up in the draft?

CM: Well, I think Carolina traded with Chicago, if my memory serves. They moved up, they felt strongly, and we’re at No. 2, and we’ll find a really good player at that spot.

Q: When DeMeco Ryans was hired, Nick Caserio said he could tell that the clock was ticking. With Caserio, with DeMeco, is it an expectation still? An ultimatum? How do you approach what you’re trying to get across to be a successful team?

CM: I think it’s a day-by-day thing. I think it starts with building the roster. I think it starts with the head coach and the GM really having great alignment and having that through the building. We’re seeing that. I think it starts with having a great draft. Having great practices. Putting people in a great position to show off their strengths, which DeMeco is particularly good at doing as a coach. We’ve seen that. Getting the most out of the players and being competitive and, yes, winning. I think it’s a journey. I think we started it. Each season is a new season. But this one is off to a really good start, and I’m excited about where we are headed.

HM: I think something that is also worth noting, that Cal has said, he wants to get back to continuity as well. With DeMeco, you know what you’re getting. You know you have a long runway with DeMeco, and you’ll have the continuity there to really build something there for a long period of time that’s sustainable.  

Q: When you look at Caserio's performance, is it more wins-based or is it more talent evaluation, how these players perform?

CM: Nick’s more responsible for the roster and the players, and the coaching staff is more responsible for taking those players and having them play at a very high level. So there’s always a mishmash going back and forth between the coaches and the scouts in how you make it all work. That’s why you’ve got to have that alignment. The scout’s got to find the right players for the coaches. The coaches have got to take the players and get them to play at a very high level. That’s what you’re looking to see from Nick, and then what you’re looking to see from DeMeco is having them perform on the field, and Nick giving DeMeco the tools to go do that.

HM: I had several head coaches during these meetings say, “Man, do you have the guy in Nick.” Outside of DeMeco. They all talk about DeMeco. DeMeco was the highlight. But all of them talking about Nick’s talent and how good he is, and that was something I kept hearing from people coming up and just commenting on Nick’s evaluation. Football guys that know what they’re talking about. These head coaches saying, ‘Man, do you have a guy in Nick.’ And that also speaks to affirmation for Cal knowing he has his guy.

Q: Do you feel Nick’s job is safe past this year?

CM: When Nick was hired, he walked into a storm that really none of us, including him, could have predicted or foreseen. I think he has really done a good job steering us through unprecedented … I don’t think any team has gone through what we’ve had to go through. And he has got us here, and it’s taken a couple of years, a couple of seasons. But he has gotten us in a place where we do have cap room. We do have picks. We have a coach that’s excited to be here, a young coach with DeMeco, who was universally thought of as one of the best in an outstanding group of coaches that came out this year. We interviewed all the coaches that got hired with the exception of one, and I know that one very well, and he’s a really great coach. So out of the great group, we think generally DeMeco’s thought of as being a really, really good, solid coach. We heard it from Philly unsolicited. Said they knew he was going to be a great coach. Totally unsolicited. All that set aside, at the end of the day, you’re going to have to go out and win. And you want to see the team improving, and you want to see it on the film, on the field and for the fans to feel it. So San Fran with (coach) Kyle (Shanahan), their first year, their record was oh and a lot. But you saw the constant improvement. And then they flipped it, and they’ve been on a great run. That was after they fired two coaches and hired Kyle. But you want to see it: progression on the field, the processes and how that leads to the wins.

Q: Throughout this offseason, being more involved with the head coaching search, what have you found out about yourself that you’re learning as you continue to do this?

CM: Well, I think you always look backward in order to learn to do things better going forward. I think you want to be involved where you need to be involved. Sometimes you need to be there, and sometimes you don’t. I love the game of football, and I want to see us win, and we’ll do what it takes to do that.

HM: And we’re both Houstonians. So it’s not that we just moved to this town. This town is our town, and we want to make our city proud. We have a lot of sleepless nights trying to figure out how to get us there, but it’s also exciting. We love it. So I think that passion drives us. You do look back only to learn, not to dwell.