Texans BREAKING: Coach David Culley Fired by Houston, per Sources

Sources: Texans fire David Culley

HOUSTON -- The Texans have fired head coach David Culley following a 4-13 initial season as head coach, according to league sources not authorized to speak publicly.

The Texans spent four days conducting due diligence on Culley and his entire coaching staff as well as keeping track of a growing number of head coaching vacancies.

Ultimately, it was recommended to chairman and CEO Cal McNair that the team move on from Culley and now he has been fired.

He has one year guaranteed remaining on his contract and is due $4 million, per a source.

New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is not expected to pursue the job. Another potential replacement candidate with ties to executive vice president of football operations Nick Caserio is Patriots inside linebackers coach Jerod Mayo, who’s expected to interview with the Broncos.

Culley was previously an assistant head coach, passing game coordinator and receivers coach for the Baltimore Ravens after stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs coaching receivers and the Buffalo Bills coaching quarterbacks.

“I thought coach Culley did a great job his first year as a head coach,” Texans veteran center Justin Britt said Monday. “Kind of the situation we had here in Houston wouldn’t have been easy for anybody. I feel like his leadership was consistent and who he was was consistent, and that’s what we needed here as a leader, someone to run this team.

“ I hope he gets another shot. I hope he gets to kind of showcase who he is, what he does, how he does it here, because it would be really interesting to see the jump he takes with the team next year. If everything was right, it would be cool to come back.”

The Texans struggled mightily on offense while trying to compete with a roster and an acknowledgement from Caserio at the start of the season that this year would be more “process oriented” than about “outcomes.”

The Texans finished last in the NFL with 83.6 rushing yards per game and averaged just 16.5 points per contest while averaging only 276.5 yards of total offense per game.

Despite the struggles, Culley embraced the experience.

”I enjoyed every minute of it,” he said. “Learned a lot, a lot of things in that coaching manual I had to go through that weren’t in there, but that’s okay. Always something new happening that was a learning experience for me, but for the most part I just kind of used all the experience that I’ve got working with all the different head coaches, all the situations they’ve been through.

“You’re judged every year. Basically, you’re judged on wins and losses, and if you judge it on wins and losses I’m not happy with four wins at all. I expected to get more than four wins and felt like we should have got more than four wins. This is a bottom-line business, and I wasn’t happy with the number of wins we got.”