Houston Texans chairman and CEO Cal McNair did not go with the two choices for general manager.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Texans had two finalists in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Omar Khan and ESPN Monday Night Football analyst Louis Riddick. Instead, McNair at the last minute went with Nick Caserio, and that upset Deshaun Watson.
Had the Houston Texans stayed the course and followed the recommendation of the search firm Korn Ferry, they likely would have hired Pittsburgh Steelers vice president of football and business administration Omar Khan as their next general manager, league sources told ESPN.
Khan and ESPN Monday Night Football analyst Louis Riddick, who are both minority candidates, were the two finalists before Texans owner Cal McNair changed his mind, ignored the recommendation of the search firm he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do weeks of work and hired former New England Patriots director of player personnel Nick Caserio, sources said.
Multiple people in the Texans organization, including quarterback Deshaun Watson, were upset with how Houston’s search took a sudden and unexpected turn, hiring a man that Korn Ferry did not include on its list of candidates.
With Caserio being buddies with Jack Easterby’s, whose foray into the organization as an executive vice president of team development coincided with Houston’s meandering path away from success, there is a sense that not all of the people responsible for the Texans’ 4-12 record are being held accountable.
