Okay, I am not going to argue with anyone who thinks Cal McNair is incompetent. He is. And keeping Jack Easterby around with significant influence on McNair will make it hard for the Texans to make good organizational decisions to make them a winning franchise.
HOWEVER:
In the short term, I think the Texans will be improved in 2022 for the following reasons:
1) Pep Hamilton, OC: Pep has helped develop Andrew Luck and Justin Hebert, and did a good job with Davis Mills last year as a 3rd round rookie QB. I can't help but think that any offense Hamilton runs will be better than the holdover Bill O'Brien offense that the Texans ran with Tim Kelly last year.
2) Lovie Smith, HC: Lovie will be a significant upgrade over David Culley. He was 83-66 as Bears head coach, going to one Super Bowl and 2 NFC championship games with 2 different QB's (Rex Grossman and Jay Cutler). He only lasted 2 years in Tampa Bay, but in his second season had the Bucs at 6-6 before losing their last 4 games with a rookie QB (Winston). Basically, he was fired because the Bucs were worried about losing their offensive coordinator genius, Dirk Koetter, so they fired Lovie and promoted Dirk. The one thing that Lovie's defenses always seem to do is take the ball away. In 15 seasons as DC or head coach, 14 out of the 15 seasons, Lovie's defenses were in the top half of the league in takeaways, and 10 out of the 15 seasons, they were in the the top 10 in takeaways (finishing 1st in takeaways 3 times). Takeaways make it a lot easier to win games.
3) Nick Casserio, GM: In his first draft, Nick ended up with 5 draft picks: 2 3rds, 2 5ths, and a 6th round pick. All 5 of his draft picks contributed in 2021. Davis Mills, Nico Collins, and Brevin Jordan could be significant contributors to the offense in 2022. Casserio currently has 9 draft picks in 2022 with 2 picks in the 3rd round and 3 picks in the 6th round (no 5th round pick). He could also add to the 2022 draft picks if he can move Deshaun before the 2022 draft. While I don't think that is likely, it is still a possibility.
4) Laremy Tunsil, LT: Tunsil played 5 games in 2021 before suffering a thumb injury which kept him out the rest of the season. While the injury was only supposed to keep Tunsil out 4 to 8 weeks, it is believed he sat out the remainder of the season because he didn't want to risk further injury in a lost season. So either the Texans will get back a pro bowl tackle back in 2022, or they will trade him before the draft and probably get an additional 1st or 2nd round draft pick. Tunsil is only 27 years old.
So I think the Texans have a lot of things going for them to improve in 2022. Assuming the draft goes well, I think they should win 6 to 8 games. I don't think that means they will necessarily continue to ascend to a playoff team in subsequent years, but in the short term, they should be better.