Nick Caserio is here. So is DeMeco Ryans. But the Texans assistant coaches are not at the NFL Combine with the team's general manager and head coach.
Caserio met with the media Tuesday morning in Indianapolis and explained the change.
"Our coaching staff actually stayed back in Houston and DeMeco will be here a little bit later this afternoon," Caserio said. "We just felt the best thing for the new staff was to stay back and work on scheme and familiarizing themselves with our team, continuing to work through that. We'll try to be efficient with our time and try to get some work done here."
Houston announced the 2023 assistant coaches on Friday. Several assistants from the 2022 squad remained with the team. Caserio detailed he and Ryans went about hiring the latest crop of coaches.
"We take our time and really want to think through decisions as we assemble the coaching staff," Caserio said. 'That was a big part of it. Having a few candidates here and talked to a number of different candidates."
The Texans general manager said Ryans even spent the night pondering candidates, in a few instances.
"He wants to sleep on it and give it some thought and them come back," Caserio said. "'Alright, yeah that makes sense, what about this?' He's very open-minded. We've had a lot of open communication. There's been a lot of dialogue."
Caserio said so far, the 2023 staff "has been great to work with", and they've accomplished quite a bit already.
"We actually met as a staff yesterday offensively and defensively and went through their evaluation," Caserio said. "We gave them some free agents to look at. We wanted to hear the staff's thoughts, DeMeco has his thoughts, I have my thoughts and we're really going to try and blend everything together here as we're going through."
Caserio, Ryans and several members of the team's scouting department will meet with NFL Draft hopefuls tonight and throughout the rest of the week. Ryans, meanwhile, will hold a Wednesday press conference in Indianapolis.
The Draft begins Thursday, April 27, and the Texans have 11 picks. Two of those selections are first-rounders, at second and 12th overall.
The Combine continues through next Monday.
