HOUSTON – Houston Texans have hired Baltimore Ravens assistant David Culley to be their next head coach, sources told ESPN, confirming a Houston Chronicle report.
Culley, 65, who has spent the last two seasons in Baltimore, has just completed his 27th season as NFL coach. In addition to serving as the team’s assistant head coach, Culley was Baltimore’s passing game coordinator and wide receiver coach. The Ravens finished the 2020 season ranked last in the NFL.
“There’s a big opportunity,” Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said of the Texans ’opening the week before the Baltimore division-by-division game. “They have a great organization. I think David Culley would be a great contract for any team; maybe, most of all, the jeans with Deshaun Watson.”
The Ravens now receive two third-round compensatory selections (one in 2021 and another in 2022) for Culley to be hired by his staff. This comes from a resolution passed in November that aims to encourage NFL teams to develop and hire minority candidates for head coach and general manager positions.
Culley has never been an offensive coordinator at the NFL level. He also coached the Kansas City Chiefs from 2013 to 16 and spent the 2017 and ’18 seasons as coach of the Buffalo Bills quarterbacks. When the Ravens hired Culley in 2019, Harbaugh said the coach was highly respected “as a teacher, game planner and motivator.”
When the Texans fired coach and general manager Bill O’Brien in October, Houston became the first team with an opening for either position. The Texans hired Nick Caserio as the new general manager earlier this month and gave him the reins of his coaching search.
Along with Culley, Houston met with Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier with Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, former Detroit Lions and Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Caldwell with Colts defensive coordinator , Matt Eberflus, and with current Texan quarterback Josh McCown, after Caserio took over. The Texans also interviewed Brandon Staley before he was hired by the Los Angeles Chargers.
In the midst of the Texans’ coaching search, sources told ESPN that Watson was not satisfied with the process the organization used to hire Caserio. And sources told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that regardless of who hired the Texans as their next head coach, it wasn’t expected to change Watson’s desire to be traded.
The Texans come out of the season 4-12, in which Watson played the best football of his NFL career. The fourth-year quarterback set career highs in touchdowns, yard passes and completion percentage. He also threw seven interceptions at the professional minimum.
ESPN’s Jamison Hensley contributed to this report.