How Rams Impacted Week 1 Foes' Offseason Upheaval

While quarterback C.J. Stroud recovered in the playoffs to secure his second straight AFC Wild Card win, taking the Kansas City Chiefs to the limit the following week, his failures, along with the failures of the entire offensive unit to end the 2024 regular season meant Ryans would say goodbye to offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, replacing him with Rams tight ends coach Nick Caley.

However, Caley's arrival to Houston may not have happened without the unprompted text from a Rams Super Bowl champion.

The Rams Infect the League

The problem of the McVay era is that everyone wants to emulate their success, often hiring coaches from the staff or signing former players.

In 2024, former Rams wide receiver and Super Bowl LVI champion Ben Skowronek was traded from the team to Houston, where he met CJ Stroud before being waived in August of that year.

Fast forward to this recent offseason, and according to Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, Stroud received a text from Skowronek that changed everything.

“Sko texted and was like, Hey, if you guys are able to get Nick Caley, he’s a great guy, loves ball, great dude,” Stroud says, in a quiet moment after practice in August. “It was spot on.”

Caley was hired and it's clear, the Texans are loving what he's bringing to their team.

Caley's Impact

Caley comes from two distinct offensive schools of thought. Josh McDaniels and The Patriot Way along with McVay's system. For the first time in Stroud's career, Caley is giving him the keys to the offense, allowing Stroud to audible and change protections.

“It was just to tell him, I’m here to try and allow him to be at his best, which ultimately will help our offense,” Caley says. “If you can get a quarterback to be at their best, your offense has a chance to be at its best, starting off there. And honestly in the spring, before we got into it, it was getting to know each other and finding out what’s important to him, what’s his why, how is he wired, how am I wired. We both love football, we both care an awful lot about it, and that kind of sparked our relationship.”

Caley helped reinvent the Rams' run game, and now he's taking those improvements and implementing them at his new stop.