Houston Texans' Big Offseason Move Among ESPN's Top NFL Storylines

Throughout the 2025 NFL offseason, the Houston Texans made sure not to remain complacent in their efforts to improve this roster ahead of their third season led by the duo of C.J. Stroud and DeMeco Ryans.

Whether you look offensively and their big moves on the offensive line and receiver, or even defensively with a few moves around the edges and a highlight acquisition in the back-end like C.J. Gardner-Johnson from the Philadelphia Eagles, there's a ton of shiny new things to like on this Texans roster.

However, among the Texans' flurry of changes this summer, there's one in the mix that could have the most implications of them all, and perhaps even be one of the biggest storylines across the NFL this season.

More interestingly, he might not even be anyone suiting up on the field on Sundays: it's Houston's first-year offensive coordinator and playcaller Nick Caley, who comes in to attempt and fix this struggling scoring unit from a year ago.

ESPN's Ben Solak credited the Texans' major move to bring in Caley as one of the NFL's top ten "names to know" ahead of the 2025 season, among a variety of different key storylines to take note of.

"I'm always hesitant about later branches plucked off coaching trees. The first few Sean McVay assistants probably have the goods, but the fourth, fifth and sixth options were probably in the back of the line for a reason. But Caley, who spent the past two years in the McVay incubator, was a longtime offensive coach for the Patriots before joining the Rams, so he isn't really a continuing chip off a chip off a chip off the block," Solak wrote. "No offense was held back more by coaching errors last season than Houston's unit. If Caley is even league average as a Year 1 playcaller, expect the Texans to finally deliver on their 2024 preseason hype."

There's a big task at hand for Caley taking the reins of this offense next season. He joins aboard as a necessay fill-in for Bobby Slowik after two years in the fold, and after seeing this group's struggles both upfront and under center, there's some work to do in order to get this Texans scoring unit to what it once was during Stroud's rookie season.

Caley is a first-time coordinator with no experience as a team's lead offensive play-caller, leaving this as a massive opportunity for the former Los Angeles Rams assistant to capitalize on as a catalyst for improvement in Houston's offense. And while extensive experience isn't quite a tool in his arsenal yet, spending time in the same building with names like Sean McVay and Tom Brady during his coaching career is a positive sign to note.

It remains to be seen if Caley can meet the lofty expectations of navigating this offense to some immense success, but if he and Stroud start clicking early, it'll be a scary sight for the rest of the league.