Bill O'Brien revealed Tuesday second-year offensive coordinator Tim Kelly will take over play-calling duties in 2020.
O'Brien was officially named general manager and head coach in January, but spoke publicly for the first time Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine.
He was asked about Kelly, who joined O'Brien's staff at Penn State as a graduate assistant, followed him to Houston and has worked his way up from coaching assistant to offensive coordinator in 2019.
O'Brien called Kelly "an excellent football coach" who worked closely with the offensive line, quarterbacks and tight ends.
"Very hardworking guy, a guy that really cares about the players," O'Brien said. "The players really respect him, does a great job in the meeting room, on the practice field, does a great job on gameday. He's just an excellent coach, and we have great relationship. He's a great person, and we're excited for him to take the next step in his career here. He's going to coach the quarterbacks, he'll call the plays, and he'll do an excellent job."
It was suspected once O'Brien officially took over the general manager role that he would delegate more coaching duties to his assistants. This is the only notable change to the offensive coaching staff.
Kelly, who will be 34 years old when the season starts, was an assistant at four different colleges from 2008 to 2011: Illinois Wesleyan, Minnesota State Moorhead, Ball State and Penn State.
He was a graduate assistant under O'Brien at Penn State and has been with him since 2012. Kelly's brother Dennis is an offensive lineman for the Tennessee Titans.
Play-callers on both sides of the ball will be doing it for the first time. Former Texans defensive lineman Anthony Weaver was also named defensive coordinator last month, replacing long-time coach Romeo Crennel.
"Weave (Anthony Weaver) has a great presence," O'Brien said. "He was a former player and has coached for a long time, he's been in different schemes, he's done an excellent job with our D-line. He's been in front of the unit before because they divide up responsibilities during the week, so he's been in front of the unit before. He's very smart, and the players have a lot of respect for Anthony and he's going to bring a lot of different ideas and creativity to our defense. I feel really good about our defensive staff. We added Chris Rumph, outside linebackers coach. He had been with Coach (Nick) Saban at Alabama, he'd been with Coach (Jeremy) Pruitt at Tennessee. We made D'Anton Lynn the secondary coach. I feel really good about D'Anton. D'Anton is an excellent coach. We're excited about where we are staff-wise on that side of the ball."
