Here's everything Houston Texans offensive coordinatorNick Caley said ahead of Week 4's matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, including Nico Collins' potential return, the short-yardage success and more.
Question: On issues in the short yardage offense
Nick Caley: "I think just start by assessing the overall situation in general. Taking an inventory of the first three weeks, seeing some of the things that maybe we could do better from a starting point, how we can execute better, some of the blocks that we could alternatively use, et cetera. Really everything to be honest with you."
Q: On having three scoring drives in Week 3 and if their timing came with a sense of urgency
Caley: "No, I think the fourth quarter we ended up being able to move the ball
on first down and get the first down of the drive. To me, that's what we're always striving to do. I think when you can start a drive and you can make positive plays and stay on schedule and stay ahead, that's when you feel, in my opinion, things start to work in sequence in terms of just drives and play and stuff like that and how they work together. That fourth quarter we were able to get the run game going. It started off slower than we obviously wanted to start off in that game. I felt like late in that second half, call it the whole fourth quarter, we were able to move the ball and stay ahead and be able to play efficient football. I thought once you catch that first down, you can gain some momentum in that. I thought the guys did a good job of adjusting and kind of settling in and being able to get some good yards in the run game. We had a couple nice hits there. C.J. was dealing it. Guys were playing well. I think it's all about positive plays on first down. Usually third down problems, those issues are a first down problem when you look at it. That's what I attribute it to. It started off slower than we wanted it to be and we've got to do a better job there."
Q: On players routes ending in similar areas multiple times in Week 3
Caley: "I think we can be better overall in just having detail and just overall in the passing game. Some of it comes down to spacing in terms of angles that you're taking at your departure. Some of it comes down to whether it's coverages and getting pushed down. I think that we can clean those things up. I think we've addressed those things. I think that we all see it for what it is."
Q: On success when players are in motion on offense
Caley: "To motion a motion, I think there has to be a reason and intent for why you're doing it. I mean, there are different reasons to do it, whether it's creating access, whether it's to force communication, whether it's the marriage of something that you have in the game plan in another part of your game plan. I think there's always a reason for it from week to week. I think we try to look at that on the front end of the game plan and try to use that accordingly for whatever the situation is. Sometimes it's a little bit different from week to week. But I think C.J. has done a really good job of just motion, snap points, timing, all those things. I'm proud of the receivers and the skill players too. They've done a good job. We use a fair amount of motion too."
Q: On QB C.J. Stroud mentioning he wants to be more aggressive
Caley: "Controlled aggression relative to in all phases like we want to be able to be a physical run team. Okay, we want to be able to get a hat on a hat. We want to be able to get yards after contact. That's a form of aggressiveness. Being able to take shots, if that's what you're referring to, in the passing game, like that's a form of aggressiveness. We want to be able to move the football and we want to be able to do it in both phases. That's our goal and certainly he's had success when you're, relatively speaking to the passing game and play actions and stuff like that. That's one thing. The physical, in terms of just aggressive in the goal line, aggressive in the fourth quarter in terms of the way that Woody [Marks] broke off some nice runs. 'D-Mo' had some nice attempts there. I think that the biggest thing is just wanting to be able to be efficient and physical and then be able to take our shots in the passing game when they provide themselves. Again, if you can stay on schedule, you can stay normal down in distance; I think that always fares well for you to have more at your disposal there. That's a charge, being better on first and second down, being efficient and just continuing to get better as an offense collectively, all of us."
Q: On dealing with tells and self-scouting
Caley: "I think that we're aware of it each week. We go through and we check those things. I think some groupings lean a certain way and then we try to offset those with different things that take advantage of those tendencies. Certainly, we have a bunch of different groupings and then we'll mix groupings too. We've had a handful of different, call it 13 groupings, a handful of different 11 groupings, multiple 12 groupings. We try to settle those things throughout the course of the season, but we're aware of it and we go through from a week-by-week standpoint."
Q: On WR Jaylin Noel and the decisions going into certain receiver groupings on the field
Caley: "I would say Jaylin has gotten on the field consistently. Again, I have no lack of faith in him at all. We have groupings. I'll call the groupings when we get into the game based on the situation. Sometimes the ball finds you and sometimes it doesn't. I think he's had opportunities and we've had some opportunities in there where maybe it hasn't gone to him that we were hoping earlier on it would or coverage takes it away or we have to progress for other reasons. He does a lot of things. He's been multifaceted for us. He's an explosive guy that's going to continue to get better and continue to help us. I think he's improved in all areas since he's been here. I think the biggest thing with him is that last year, I think you saw a guy that we all knew could run down the field and take the top off of coverage. He's really worked on his nuance in terms of first- and second-level route running, perimeter game, et cetera. You see him, he's a ball-in-hand guy too that can make explosive plays with the ball in his hand. I think the biggest thing is just continuing to build in all facets, plays inside the formation. We can move him outside the formation, which you saw some. We just have to bring him along and continue to do that and he's working his ass off to do that."
Q: On improvement in the run game
Caley: "The biggest thing is being able to look at it after every game and say 'Okay, what's the reason for why there's an inefficient run? Could we have designed something better? Could we have been better technically and fundamentally? It was a matchup issue or a one-on-one issue. We just didn't win a one-on-one situation.' Whatever the case is, you go back and you look at it. You take the body of work. You look through the first, call it, handful of games here and what we're trying to do is find out what are the issues that come up, where can we clean up those issues and then you move forward and try to do those things in terms and also try to adjust scheme as it goes. The other thing I do believe in is I do believe in volume of runs. I think that you saw that. A little bit slower start than we obviously wanted to, a one-yard run, a two-yard run. When you get to the fourth quarter, we were able to get a little bit more hits in the run game, which was great for us. We were able to get the drives going. Committing to that and being able to stay through to that and give those guys an opportunity to go work to earn the opportunity to just keep moving the ball. You saw that in the fourth quarter. Again, that's what we're always trying to do. I think there's always a reason for how you want to do it. But we're close. There are certainly things that I think are definitely most of it's all fixable. We have to just continue to go that route and work at it."
Q: On WR Nico Collins
Caley: "Nico's a stud. Just having him back and just being out there, there's joy and energy and all those things. I think with him just getting back, Nico being a part of what we do. We're all excited for that. I think he'll bring a competitiveness, a spirit. Guy never has a bad day. Guy's always coming to work and great energy. It'll enhance the energy too. Happy to have him back out there."
Q: On what has frustrated him offensively the last couple of weeks
Caley: "Being able to be more efficient again on earlier downs then when we get to the situational piece of it, being able to execute a little bit cleaner and just being able to be more efficient overall and stay on schedule. You look at the Week 1, it wasn't all perfect by any stretch of the imagination. but we were efficient. We were able to do fairly well on first and second down. You look at last week, it was a slower start in those phases. Trying to be better on early downs and then be able to certainly be more efficient when we get into situational football."
Q: On whether separation is somewhere the receivers can improve
Caley: "It's a bunch of things. It's, A, there's separation techniques at the top of routes. There's ability where we can obviously certainly motion guys to try to create some access to help guys. They get paid too on defense. There are defenders that are sticky too and do a good job. I think it's a lot of different things. It's never usually just one thing. Just being able to try to help from our standpoint, from a coaching standpoint, trying to refine some of the things at the top of the routes on man-match type of routes where we have moving routes where we can help with some technique stuff and then just being able to put it all together."
This article originally appeared on Texans Wire: Everything Texans OC Nick Caley said ahead of Week 4 vs. Cowboys
