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Texans promote TE coach Tim Kelly to be the OC

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Waterboy
Less impressive since Sean Ryan is now gone. But Ryan has been a QB coach before over a long period of time, so maybe that's his ceiling. Of course coaching the TEs to block was important, they had to be the other half of the man Davenport isn't.
 
thunderkyss

thunderkyss

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H_Town_Gaucho said:
So OB now has someone to take the heat for his conservative ways. I would never believe that the new OC would call plays that OB hasn't already approved given any predetermined situation.
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Just to be clear, there is no reason to believe the OC will be calling plays. Godsey who was BO'bs BFF since his GeorgiaTech days didn't get play calling duties right away & had them revoked a couple of times during the season.
 
maverick512000

maverick512000

Hall of Fame
JB said:
yeah, I was just speaking of this board and he is aligned with neither side of the 'great debate', he is impartial when discussing the Texans
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There's no such thing, if he doesn't declare a side he will have the side declared for him depending on which side the facts he talks about support.
 
steelbtexan

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JB said:
yeah, I was just speaking of this board and he is aligned with neither side of the 'great debate', he is impartial when discussing the Texans
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There's really not a side.

There's are you going to be fair and atleast give Gaine/BOB a chance to implement their vision with a full draft and a yrs worth of experience for this offseasons young drafted guys.
 
maverick512000

maverick512000

Hall of Fame
DBCooper said:
Lol

There’s a side amigo....

One side thinks O’Brien will pull his head out of his ass and the other not so much.
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I just wish those that are trying to look at the whole picture, the good, the bad and the ugly, would stop getting labeled as a BoB supporter/hater when we point out facts that one side doesn't want to acknowledge because it doesn't support their narrative.
 
JB

JB

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steelbtexan said:
There's really not a side.

There's are you going to be fair and atleast give Gaine/BOB a chance to implement their vision with a full draft and a yrs worth of experience for this offseasons young drafted guys.
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Au contraire mon frere

There is a wall and you're either on one side or the other or straddling. It's there on this forum as surely as it is in the NSZ
 
JB

JB

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maverick512000 said:
I just wish those that are trying to look at the whole picture, the good, the bad and the ugly, would stop getting labeled as a BoB supporter/hater when we point out facts that one side doesn't want to acknowledge because it doesn't support their narrative.
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Facts don't matter much when passionate emotions are involved. Opinions rule and 'mine' is always right
 
steelbtexan

steelbtexan

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DBCooper said:
Lol

There’s a side amigo....

One side thinks O’Brien will pull his head out of his ass and the other not so much.
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Let him get the talent he wants in place and a yrs experience for that talent and if they aren't a true contender I will be on board. Last yr was yr 1 of a mini rebuild.
 
JB

JB

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steelbtexan said:
Let him get the talent he wants in place and a yrs experience for that talent and if they aren't a true contender I will be on board. Last yr was yr 1 of a mini rebuild.
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I just worry that he knows and can communicate what he wants
 
steelbtexan

steelbtexan

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JB said:
Au contraire mon frere

There is a wall and you're either on one side or the other or straddling. It's there on this forum as surely as it is in the NSZ
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#Badmoderation
maverick512000 said:
I just wish those that are trying to look at the whole picture, the good, the bad and the ugly, would stop getting labeled as a BoB supporter/hater when we point out facts that one side doesn't want to acknowledge because it doesn't support their narrative.
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The moderator sets the tone around here and he's never wrong. Dont believe this, look at his post history.
 
zshawn10

zshawn10

All Pro
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Waterboy
Carr Bombed said:
I actually like the Carl Smith hire.. he did a good job with Russell Wilson.
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I agree, it's more exciting than the other changes. As in it IS somewhat exciting. The rest, including the retaining of Mike Devlin as offensive line coach, reinforces my feeling that O'Brien thinks we're just a solid minor league team chugging along out of sight down on the Gulf Coast, just one playoff win (over Connor Cook) better than Marvin Lewis.
 
AcresHomesTexan

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TheKDog

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Some more context on the Carl Smith hire:

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/seahawks-assistant-carl-smith-heading-to-new-position-with-houston-texans/

Smith had been Seattle’s quarterbacks coach from 2011 to 2017 before moving into a role last season as associate head coach.

In Houston, Smith will not only get to work with Texans’ third-year quarterback Deshaun Watson but also with his son, Tracy, who is Houston’s assistant special teams coordinator.

...

Smith was moved out of the QB coach role last year when Carroll reorganized the offensive coaching staff in the wake of the firing of offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell.

Dave Canales, who had been receivers coach, took over as QBs coach. Smith, whom it was known Wilson hoped would stay in the organization, was then moved into an associate head coach role.

However, new offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer is in charge of the quarterbacks, essentially serving as the coach of that position group, as well, if not holding the actual title.


“The quarterback will always be a focal point in your development and really excited about Schottenheimer coming in and Canales taking a hold of that thing and challenging him like maybe he has never been challenged before. That would be great,” Carroll said last March. “I like the fact that he can connect the play-caller and the quarterback leader, and the guy that’s going to be with him on the field, as well, on a regular basis. I like the fact that … I wanted to make that connection for Russell, so we could communicate directly with him in a little bit different fashion than we have. Dave Canales will work with him, too, of course, but I think Brian brings something that we are looking forward to seeing.”
 
zshawn10

zshawn10

All Pro
Want to know more about new #Texans offensive coordinator Tim Kelly?@aaronjreiss traces his path from coaching a Division II defense to Houston, with a pit stop at Penn State, where Kelly made a presentation that impressed Bill O’Brien. http://theathletic.com/801821

Before his first spring football practices as the head coach at Penn State, Bill O’Brien assembled his entire coaching staff for two days of meetings. One day was devoted to offense, the other defense, and each coach gave a presentation on a different aspect of the game while staff members asked questions.

The coaching industry calls these sessions "self-clinics," and O’Brien is a strong believer in their value. He engaged with each presentation, and during the day of defense-focused lectures that year, he became impressed by a new graduate assistant named Tim Kelly.

It was 2012, and Kelly was working primarily with the Nittany Lions’ defensive linemen. He offered a presentation about pass rush stunts that was "very interactive," according to former Penn State defensive line coach Larry Johnson. As part of Kelly’s lecture, players on screen moved as Kelly, a 6-foot-4 former defensive tackle, clicked through his PowerPoint and showed strong command of the room.

"That helped him (earn favor with O’Brien)," Johnson said of Kelly. "He could stand in front of all these veteran coaches."

In the years since, Kelly and O’Brien developed a stronger working relationship. O’Brien brought Kelly with him to the Texans in 2014 as an offensive quality control coach, a job Kelly held for two years before becoming an assistant offensive line coach, then Houston’s tight ends coach and, finally, O’Brien’s new offensive coordinator.

The team announced Kelly’s promotion on Tuesday afternoon, and it’s unclear whether O’Brien will cede playcalling responsibilities to him. Regardless of how they divide duties, it’s obvious O’Brien believes his offensive system does not need much tweaking, because he chose to install a coordinator who has learned the professional game through his system while remaining loyal to him.

According to people close to Kelly, when O’Brien left Penn State for the Texans, he knew he wanted Kelly on his staff in Houston but wasn’t sure he’d have an available position. While he waited to hear from O’Brien, Kelly accepted a job as a defensive assistant at Elon, packed his things into his car and told one of his former coaches at Eastern Illinois, where he played college football, that he "wasn’t sure if he was going to drive to North Carolina or drive that thing to Texas."

Of course, O’Brien eventually offered a job in the NFL, and Kelly headed to Houston.

"He saw an opportunity to go learn in the NFL," Johnson said. "He would’ve done any job, pencil pushing stuff. … Because he did that, he stayed very loyal to Bill. Look at where he’s at now. A lot of young guys would’ve said, ‘I’m going to go do my own thing.’"

Johnson said Kelly’s promotion is evidence of O’Brien’s continued belief in "The Patriot Way," which, among other things, includes a steadfast belief in promoting from within. Like Kelly, O’Brien jumped to the NFL as a quality control coach, doing so in New England before becoming Bill Belichick’s offensive coordinator.

Those who know the 32-year-old Kelly figure the qualities that make O’Brien believe Kelly is prepared for this coordinator position are the same ones Kelly displayed as a young coach, before and during his time at Penn State: an ability to learn quickly, a willingness to admit what he does not understand and a grasp of how to clearly communicate concepts to players.

"Tim is very astute," said former Penn State tight ends coach John Strollo, who helped Kelly get that graduate assistant job on O’Brien’s staff. "You explain something once, and he gets it. If he doesn’t get it, he’ll ask questions until he does. I knew he’d operate like that, and Billy coming from the Patriots, I knew he’d want a guy like that."

In college, as a defensive tackle, Kelly helped set the Eastern Illinois defense before the snap and made on-field adjustments. He lacked overpowering athleticism but had plenty of football smarts, and his college coaches thought that if he switched to offense, he might have had a chance to play in the NFL like his brother, Titans tackle Dennis Kelly.

But Eastern Illinois, an FCS program, only had 63 scholarships available, and having Kelly switch positions would’ve adversely impacted the team’s depth, so he remained on defense. When his playing career finished, he started coaching. He spent one season each at Illinois-Wesleyan and Minnesota State-Moorhead, where he met his now-wife, Katie, and became defensive coordinator midway through the team’s 2010 campaign. Then he jumped to the FBS level when his college special teams coach, Justin Lustig, recommended him for a graduate assistant position coaching defensive linemen at Ball State.

"We probably had some discussions about where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do," Lustig said of Kelly’s goals then. "I know he didn’t have any grandiose ideas about being an offensive coordinator in the NFL, anything like that. He just did things the right way, taking things one step at a time."

The next obvious step up the industry ladder came after just one season at Ball State, where Strollo worked with and met Kelly. After Strollo joined O’Brien’s Penn State staff, he recommended Kelly for a graduate assistant position coaching offensive linemen. Kelly traveled to Pennsylvania to interview, only for the Nittany Lions’ offensive line coach to end up already having a candidate in mind — but that didn’t matter much. O’Brien would just place Kelly elsewhere on his staff.

"As soon as they met, it was a bromance," Strollo said of Kelly and O’Brien.
At Penn State, Kelly worked under Johnson, the school’s longtime defensive line coach who claimed to have "never been one of those guys that said, ‘You’re a GA, go get me coffee.’" Instead, the two alternated responsibilities between coaching the interior defensive linemen and those on the edge. Kelly had a knack for identifying offensive linemen’s techniques and tendencies that the Nittany Lions could exploit each week, and he liked to demonstrate bag drills that sharpened agility.

"Coach, I still got this," Kelly would jokingly say after hustling through a drill, according to Johnson.

"Slow down now," Johnson would reply.

Kelly’s future was in coaching after all, not playing. And people who worked with him at Penn State figured he could rise through the industry if he stuck with O’Brien.

But when O’Brien left Penn State for the Texans in 2014, Kelly confided in Strollo that he wasn’t sure whether to work at Elon or wait for a call from Houston. Stroll recalled politely asking him: "Are you nuts? You’ve got to stick with this guy. I don’t know what you’re going to be, but you’re going to be something."

In the NFL, Kelly turned out to be an offensive coach for the first time in his career. He told another of his former Eastern Illinois coaches that when he first started working with the Texans, former offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach George Godsey handed him a six-inch thick playbook that served as a reminder of the tall task ahead. Kelly — who was not available for an interview for this story — was learning a new side of the game while adjusting to football’s highest level. Yet it took just five seasons for Kelly to prove himself worthy of being an offensive coordinator to O’Brien.

Shortly after word of Kelly’s promotion got out on Saturday evening, a phone number with a Houston area code, 713, flashed across Strollo’s phone. He figured it was Kelly. Strollo answered and immediately offered his first reaction to the news.

"That didn’t take long."
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Thorn

Thorn

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zshawn10 said:
patrick‏Verified account@PatDStat
#Texans hire Carl Smith their QB coach. Spent the last 7-season in Seattle with Russell Wilson. Entering his 29th season in the NFL.

10:15 AM - 5 Feb 2019

Deepi Sidhu

✔@DeepSlant

Three former #Texans players (T.J. Yates, Brian Cushing, Akeem Dent) are now on this staff. Also former Director of Football Operations Doug West is now assistant to Bill O'Brien.
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Yates in on staff? Excellent. We may need him the next time we play the Bengals.
 
OzzO

OzzO

.. and then?
since turning into the all encompassing coaching..... don't think this has been noted yet.

Wes Welker Leaves the Houston Texans for the San Francisco 49ers to continue his coaching career.

Former Houston Texans offensive assistant Wes Welker will be leaving to the San Francisco 49ers to become their wide receiver coach according to reports. The Houston Chronicle's John McClain first reported that Welker was leaving to the 49ers shortly after the Texans announced their 2019 coaching staff.....
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https://footballmaven.io/texans/news/wes-welker-leaves-the-houston-texans-for-the-san-francisco-49ers-nE34-IOaqkClnYTXyJ33eg/?fbclid=IwAR0RiuAQZKaPNEe439QSlTgrYl-gPMt_nkpMVh0VAfcoN1oPKb1WlEgnPBY
 
steelbtexan

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DBCooper said:
Since I’m die hard and not going anywhere we shall certainly see.
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This is what's exciting to me this offseason. They have a real chance to add 3-5 premium talent guys if Gaine nails this offseason. The team isn't that far away from being a true contender. If Gaine has a great offseason I will go as far to say that they will be a contender but not a SB participant next yr. I also dont think their record will be as good next yr even though the team will be in much better shape. 10-6 due to a 1st place schedule.
 
Mr teX

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maverick512000 said:
Great story but nothing in there screams to me that he is ready for the job, but hey I've been wrong before.
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Nothing really screamed that Gaine was ready for the GM job either..In fact, most here panned or were indifferent to the hire b/c they thought he was just going to be a yes man to BoB b/c its who BoB wanted for better “organizational alignment”. Its still early in his tenure, but I don’t think anyone is thinking that about Gaine anymore.
 
AcresHomesTexan

AcresHomesTexan

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JB said:
Not at all. Do you want a forum that is top-heavy? I would prefer that the few rules (attack the post, not the poster; post a link when quoting from an external site; refrain from profanity if not in the NSFW forum) be observed, but Mods ain't parents.
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At least true in one of our cases.
 
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zshawn10

zshawn10

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Max

Max

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zshawn10 said:
Aaron Wilson@AaronWilson_NFL



Bill O'Brien on @Texans radio 'We’ve had different guys call the plays. I’ve called plays, obviously we had George Godsey call plays. There’s no doubt in my mind that Tim Kelly is ready to call plays and that’s something that will always be, like I said, a collaborative effort'



6:10 PM - Feb 5, 2019
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I think they should do the telephone game with every play. BOB whispers the call to Yates who whispers it to Kelly who relays it to Watson. Maybe it will turn into a good play by the end of the relay process.
 
Texas Jake

Texas Jake

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steelbtexan said:
This is what's exciting to me this offseason. They have a real chance to add 3-5 premium talent guys if Gaine nails this offseason. The team isn't that far away from being a true contender. If Gaine has a great offseason I will go as far to say that they will be a contender but not a SB participant next yr. I also dont think their record will be as good next yr even though the team will be in much better shape. 10-6 due to a 1st place schedule.
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I think with the right additions and a little bit of luck, this team could make it to the SB next year. Fix the CB position and this defense becomes a top 5 defense I think. Fix the o-line and this offense becomes legit.

I think Watson takes a big step forward in his progress this year, especially with the new QB coach. This year was good for him in that he learned he can't go for the homerun on every play. If our wr corps can stay healthy, this offense will be explosive. I think the potential is there for a very big season.
 
Texas Jake

Texas Jake

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Earl34 said:
Seems like O'Brien is impressed with animated presentations. My PowerPoint and presentation skills are strong. Maybe I should send my resume with an embedded PPT.
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BoB was impressed by his grasp of the game, confidence and ability to speak competently to a group of senior coaches. After hearing his story, I am curious how he will do as an OC. He comes from the defensive side of the ball, but has primarily coached on the offense. You can look at his defensive background and say he is a defensive guy and doesn't know offense OR you can look at his defensive background and say he really knows defense and will be able to attack it on offense. From the article he sounds like a bright guy. Hopefully that equates to he will become a good OC. I have no expectation one way or the other (if he will be good or not), but I will wait and see before pronouncing judgement. I hope he turns out to be the next great offensive mind (and not just offensive on offense).
 
maverick512000

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Personally I think this was a way for BoB to kill multiple birds with one stone. BoB clearly likes the kid and wants to mentor him and likewise BoB also, right or wrong, still wants to do the job of the OC and be the primary play caller. With this change BoB is able to give the kid a promotion and his break in NFL coaching, sure all of us will agree your first job in any industry is the hardest to get, while also mentoring him and teaching him. At the same time BoB can continue to be the main play caller without having the kickback that an experienced OC might give him. The fact that now he can point and say "look we've hired an OC" is just the cherry on top.

I really don't think this is them get ready to have a scapegoat or a plan in place when it all fails, seriously some of you must think the Texans are the damn Legion of Doom with all the evil masterminds you think are in that place. I think this is BoB seeing a chance to help out a kid he likes while also following through on what he believes to be a winning plan. I can almost guarantee you that after every game they will be sitting in the film room and BoB asking him "What play would you have called here." or "What did I see that made me call that play." Typical mentor/student stuff.

Now my personal feeling are I don't really care for the job BoB has done as OC and I don't like that the Texans are the training ground for the new coach. Everyone has to get their start somewhere but you may not want it to be your business they get that start in. I would feel much better, as of this posting, if he was getting his first OC job for say the Jags or Colts. Who knows though, the kid may turn out to be a natural at it and after proving himself BoB turn the job fully over to him. I don't think that will happen but then I didn't think Watson would be setting NFL records his first full year either or that we would have a winning season in 2018 so yeah there's that.

All in all though its done and nothing said here will change it so all we can do is hope for the best and brace ourselves for the worst.
 
Texas Jake

Texas Jake

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Max said:
I think they should do the telephone game with every play. BOB whispers the call to Yates who whispers it to Kelly who relays it to Watson. Maybe it will turn into a good play by the end of the relay process.
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The collaborative play call can work, but you have to have one person who is definitely in charge. The outside input can be good and help prevent the play caller from becoming blinded by their tunnel vision. One person has to be steering the ship, though. If it is play call be committee, that is not going to work.
 
maverick512000

maverick512000

Hall of Fame
Texas Jake said:
The collaborative play call can work, but you have to have one person who is definitely in charge. The outside input can be good and help prevent the play caller from becoming blinded by their tunnel vision. One person has to be steering the ship, though. If it is play call be committee, that is not going to work.
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I always envisioned this really only working if it went something like this.

Play caller: "I'm calling X play, you guys have 10 seconds to tell me something you saw that makes that a bad idea. If not then I'm calling it in."
 
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