Head Coach Candidate Profile: Bobby Slowik

Taking a closer look at Texans OC and the scheme he runs in Houston

With the Washington Commanders search for a new head coach to replace Ron Rivera ongoing, it’s time to continue my series profiling some of the candidates we know the Commanders have requested permission to interview. Previously I looked at Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and Ravens defensive coordinator Mike MacDonald. Today it’s the turn of Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik. 

Bobby Slowik has a long history with Kyle Shanahan. His first job in the NFL was actually on the famous Washington staff of 2011-2013. Back then, he was a defensive assistant with his father Bob Slowik on the staff as the defensive backs coach. Years later when Kyle Shanahan became the head coach of the 49ers, Slowik was hired as a defensive quality control coach before switching to the offensive side of the ball and working his way up Shanahan’s staff as other teams hired away his assistants. Slowik was the passing game coordinator before Demeco Ryans was hired by the Texans last year and offered him the chance to call plays, something which Kyle Shanahan does in San Francisco. 

When you watch the Texans offense, you can see the heavy influence of the Shanahan system. All the staples are there. To give you a reminder of that Shanahan system, here’s a sequence of plays Kyle Shanahan called against Washington back in 2022. 

The three plays in this clip are all different, but they look almost identical. The first play is a zone scheme run from 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends, two wide receivers) with both tight ends to the right and both receivers aligned in tight splits. The quarterback takes a reverse pivot out from under center and tosses the ball to running back Christian McCaffrey on the zone scheme run.

The second play of the clip looks exactly the same at the snap. It’s the same personnel group, the same formation and as the ball is snapped, the quarterback takes the same reverse pivot out from under center as he looks to toss the ball to McCaffrey on a zone run to the right. However, this play is actually an RPO (run-pass option). Pre-snap, the corner covering the X receiver to the left is playing off with a cushion, compared to the first play of the clip where he played up on the line of scrimmage in press. The receiver runs a “now” slant, breaking inside immediately off the snap and the quarterback knows he can hit him with the corner playing off. So after faking the toss, he quickly pivots back around and hits the receiver on the slant.

The third and final play of the clip really wraps up the sequence perfectly. Again, we have the exact same personnel, formation and look overall. The quarterback again reverse pivots out and looks to toss the ball to McCaffrey on a zone run to the right. The defense all bites up to defend the run they’ve already seen before. That’s when the quarterback suddenly keeps the ball and bootlegs out to the flat. 

Practically every defender bites on the run fake, leaving the quarterback rolling out with nothing but open field ahead of him. Tight end George Kittle sells his run fake before sneaking out on his shallow cross and not a single defender picks him up. It’s an easy throw and catch and the defense just can’t get back across the field in time to stop Kittle from running into the end zone completely untouched.

Naturally, Slowik has all the same ingredients in his playbook. 

The three plays in this clip show the same types of plays we saw in the Kyle Shanahan sequencing clip above. First we see the wide zone run scheme, then we see that RPO now slant which the Texans hit for a touchdown, and finally the third play of the clip shows a nice bootleg for a first down. These are all the fundamental ingredients that Kyle Shanahan uses regularly to put together what is one of the best offensive systems in the NFL.

Having a young offensive mind that has been groomed in the Shanahan system for years has to be appealing to whoever the new head of football operations may be. If the rumors are true and 49ers assistant GM Adam Peters is the favorite for the job, then he will obviously be very familiar with Slowik, the Shanahan system and the types of players to draft to fit that system, so Slowik would make a lot of sense for that type of set up. But what I would say about Slowik is that he deserves credit for being flexible and his own man, not just trying to be Kyle Shanahan. 

The Texans offensive line has had numerous injuries throughout the season and rarely been able to play with a consistent and settled group. The players that have been cycled in and out of the line up haven’t always been fully suited to the traditional zone blocking run scheme that has historically been the foundation of the Shanahan system. Now, Kyle Shanahan has branched out in recent years into more gap scheme concepts, but still majors in the zone run game. Slowik wasn’t afraid to adjust to more gap scheme runs to suit his personnel.