BRB GroupThink: Nick Caserio’s Best Signing

We are almost a quarter way through the 2021 NFL regular season. That damn seventeenth game on the schedule screwed it all up. After four games, there’s enough of a sample size to have some understanding of our local nightmare. The Texans are bad, Davis Mills is worse, and Nick Caserio’s signings haven’t done much. That being said, there’s always something shiny to latch onto. For this week’s GroupThink, I asked the masthead the following question:

Now that the Texans have released Anthony Miller to open the door for Danny Amendola to get seven targets a game and we are almost a quarter through the season, who do you think has been the best signing Nick Caserio made?

Below are our responses:

MATT WESTON:

After signing twelve linebackers, Kamu Gruiger-Hill has emerged not only as the best of the bunch, but he has been better than Zach Cunningham this season and has been the best linebacker for the Houston Texans. He reads the run game well and shoots gaps. He had a nice looping blitz against Cleveland to pick up a sack. And although he’s not a great coverage linebacker, Gruiger-Hill at least understands his landmarks, where to line up, and he gets in the way of throwing lanes. This is more than what can be said about the rest of the linebackers on this team.

BIGFATDRUNK:

At this point, I think it’s Desmond King, but it was a one-year deal, so who really cares?

I get that Caserio was not in an ideal spot, but what he has done so far does not give me even a shred of confidence he has either a plan or a clue. Incinerating your 2022 fifth and 2022 seventh picks for Miller is not ideal. Let’s not forget that he traded up for Nico Collins in a move that burned a lot of draft points. Davis Mills in the third in 2021 LOL!

Danny Amendola on this roster is an incredible waste of everybody’s time. Oh, he can teach the younger players something? Sign him as a coach. Ain’t no other team going to sign him to actually, you know, take the field.

After Brian Gaine, Bill O’Brien, and now Nick Caserio? I’m almost ready to re-hire Rick Smith.

/ducks hwisky bottle thrown by Rivers.

RIVERS MCCOWN:

Honestly? Maliek Collins.

L4BLITZER:

We are still only a quarter of the way into the season, so there is time for any of the plethora of linebackers, running backs, and cornerbacks Caserio has signed to make a better name for themselves. So far, I guess you would have to say Tyrod Taylor, one of the few non-linebackers, running backs, or cornerbacks in the mix, in that after six quarters of playing for Houston, people are already longing for the moment Taylor can take the field again. Outside of that, I can’t say that most of Caserio’s other moves are all that impactful or memorable.

It is too early to fully grade Caserio, but some of his recent moves, like with Miller, don’t auger well for the future. Wasting draft picks for players that get cut within a few weeks, restructuring bad current deals to free up short-term cap space for short-term free agents, all to have longer term cap impacts…this doesn’t seem like a plan for success, short or long-term. I guess Caserio hasn’t traded Deshaun Watson for a couple of low picks, so he has that going for him.

The best signing for Caserio was when he signed the paperwork to make good money as the Texans’ GM. Outside of that and Taylor (for now), everyone else is just as good or bad as anyone else.

EVAN WILLSMORE:

I think Tyrod is probably the best (from what we’ve seen so far), Kamu Grugier-Hill is a close second.

I think it’s a bit disappointing that a team in a rebuild is quickly skimming over young talent, though. Keeping Amendola over Miller is a bit questionable because of the age difference; maybe it’s because Amendola is kind of a Houston local? He’s played better, but still.

I also would’ve kept Ryan Finley over Jeff Driskel, Finley’s an up-and-down kind of player but he definitely showed some promise with the Bengals last year.

DIEHARD CHRIS:

With Tyrod Taylor playing as well as he did before his injury, I have to go with him. However, part of signing Tyrod Taylor is knowing—literally knowing—that he will get injured. When you couple that with a rookie QB who has looked average at best and historically awful at worst, that also has to be a part of the thought process when evaluating said Taylor signing.

I also like Desmond King, but to have him near/at the top of your depth chart at cornerback is a failure.

MATT ROBINSON:

I said this in the preseason and I’ll say it again, Pep Hamilton.

As bleak as Houston’s offense has been the first four weeks I would like to believe Pep was the metaphorical angel on OC Tim Kelley’s shoulder telling him to ignore all those nasty tendencies he learned under Bill O’Brien. Hamilton’s familiarity with journeyman TyGOD Taylor helped construct an eye-opening Week One game plan against the underachieving Jaguars, and it will continue to help get new signal callers indoctrinated into the offense.

It is Hamilton’s presence here that makes me comfortable with the notion of taking a franchise signal-caller mere moments after moving on from Watson in the coming offseason. I would not be surprised if Pep was given a chance to move up in the organization, pending his jaw-dropping development of a third quarterback.