Texans fire David Culley: 3 replacements Houston should hire

The Houston Texans fire head coach David Culley after one 4-13 season on the job.

The Houston Texans are the eighth NFL team to hop on the head-coaching carousel, as they fired their former head coach David Culley after one 4-13 season at the helm on Thursday afternoon.

Admittedly, Culley was never even given a real chance. The career wide receivers coach felt like a potential candidate to go one-and-done as a head coach. Though Houston was devoid of talent, the Texans massively overachieved to even get to four wins. There was some debate this team was not even going to win a game entering last season. Culley earned so much better than this.

Now that the Texans have decided to make a change, here are three candidates to replace Culley.

Houston Texans: 3 replacements for David Culley as head coach in 2022

Brian Daboll stems from the Belichick/Saban tree and can develop quarterbacks

Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll will almost certainly be getting his first head-coaching opportunity this offseason. He had been on the coaching carousel the two previous cycles. While Buffalo’s late playoff run largely knocked him out of the mix last year, Daboll could potentially end up joining some familiar faces in Houston from his New England Patriots days.

Daboll worked with Nick Caserio and Jack Easterby in Foxborough. Though he will have better opportunities than the one in Houston (Chicago and Miami), Daboll has shown he can elevate a talented quarterback who is a tad raw. Davis Mills may have been a third-round pick out of Stanford, but he was a five-star coming out of high school for a reason. Daboll does makes sense.

If Daboll believes Mills has more upside than Justin Fields or Tua Tagovailoa at the NFL level, he may come to Houston to work alongside Caserio and Easterby once again.