Texans Also Firing OC Tim Kelly, Want QB Coach Pep Hamilton As Next OC

According to Adam Schefter, the Texans are also letting go of OC Tim Kelly. 

This doesn’t come as a big surprise in the wake of HC David Culley‘s firing. Kelly’s job wasn’t viewed as safe even if Culley had stayed. 

But Jonathan Jones notes the Texans want to promote QB coach Pep Hamilton to offensive coordinator regardless of who the next coach is, which is a little bit unusual. 

Of course, the Texans haven’t operated in a conventional manner the past year or so. 

The Texans are believed to be targeting former Dolphins HC Brian Flores as their next head coach, per one report. 

Kelly, 35, played college football as a defensive tackle at Eastern Illinois before moving into the coaching ranks. He had a variety of stops before joining Bill O’Brien‘s staff at Penn State as a graduate assistant. 

Kelly followed O’Brien to the Texans in 2014 as an offensive QC coach. He’s held a number of roles since then before being promoted to offensive coordinator in 2019. 

Hamilton, 47, began his coaching career as the QBs coach at Howard back in 1997. He spent five years at Howard and worked his way to offensive coordinator before taking his first NFL coaching job with the Jets in 2003 as an offensive quality control coach.

Hamilton had stints with the 49ers and Bears before he was hired by Jim Harbaugh as Stanford’s quarterbacks coach for the 2006 season. From there, he spent three years with the Colts as their offensive coordinator before being replaced after the 2015 season.

He was the assistant head coach/QBs coach for the Browns in 2016 and returned to Harbaugh’s staff at Michigan in 2017. From there, Hamilton served as the head coach and general manager for the XFL’s DC Defenders before being hired by the Chargers as a QB coach. He joined the Texans in the same capacity in 2021. 

We’ll have more on the Texans’ coaching search as the news is available.