HOUSTON — When Dom Capers walked up the stairs and across the bridge over the highway to the practice fields outside NRG Stadium before a Panthers-Texans joint practice on Thursday, it felt familiar to him.

Not just because he used to coach the Houston Texans, or because he was walking with Texans linebackers coach Bill Davis, who was known as Billy 30 years ago when he was Capers' outside linebackers coach in Carolina in 1995.

All of this was familiar because it was by design, and that's how Capers ended up in Houston in the first place.

"You know, I've always liked a challenge," Capers said.

The 75-year-old senior defensive assistant laughs when he thinks about it now, because not too many coaches would sign up to coach expansion teams twice. And he's also the only coach to ever do it in the NFL. But because of his incredible success with the Panthers in their first years, the Texans made an aggressive move to hire him in advance of their inaugural 2002 season.

The reasons why were obvious.

When the Panthers hired him to start their franchise, he won 21 games in his first two seasons and took a second-year expansion team to an NFC Championship Game. So it was natural that the Texans would want to replicate that kind of success.

That caused them to make an aggressive run at him in 2001, a year before they began playing, to give Capers time to build.

So the detail-obsessed Capers — who told stories in the '90s about growing up mowing lawns in Ohio, and edging sidewalks with a fork — went to work building a franchise from scratch, based on blueprints he helped draw in Carolina.

That meant work as granular as trips to Florida to investigate types of grass for the practice fields. And at every turn, he kept coming back to the similarities to his first experience. To get to his three Panthers practice fields, he left the stadium, took a left, and walked under a railroad bridge. To get to his three Texans practice fields, he left the stadium, took a left, and walked over the same bridge over the highway he walked on Thursday.

"That's part of an expansion team you go through," Capers said. "Whether it's the equipment staff, the video staff, the facility maintenance, all those things that you go through putting things together. It takes a lot of people, OK, having to bring together and organize and define the roles and that type of thing."

While the fit seems so natural in hindsight, there was competition for his services at the time.

After the 2000 season, the Bills fired Wade Phillips and were interested in Capers. Of course they were, their GM was Tom Donahoe, who had worked with Capers in Pittsburgh in the early 90s. But so were the Jets, after the one-year Al Groh era.

"I had interviewed with the Jets that year and, as we all know, timing is everything," Capers said. "So when I came back from the Jets interview, Tom would call twice that day about coming up to Buffalo. But by the time I had set my luggage down from that trip, (then-Texans owner) Bob McNair called and said, 'We're going to name you the head coach of the Texans tomorrow,' so I didn't have a chance to really proceed with the Buffalo situation, right?"

That gave him something he didn't particularly have in Carolina — time.

In 1994, the expansion Jaguars hired coach Tom Coughlin a year early. But early in 1995, Capers was coaching the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 15, and was on the job alongside general manager Bill Polian a week later.

"I feel like a sprinter in the starting blocks," Capers said at the press conference to welcome him to Charlotte. "I can't wait to get started."

(Of course, the Panthers had jumped the gun that year, reaching out to him while the Steelers were still playing earlier that month. They were fined $150,000, and the NFL took away second- and sixth-round picks for violating the league's tampering policy.)

So when Capers was afforded the luxury of time to prepare which he didn't have in Carolina — and there might be nothing Capers loves more than preparing — he ran for the chance.

"Just the fact that you had done this before and you had kind of a proven track record, that was the number one thing," he said. "There are a lot of things involved when you're building a franchise from the ground up, in terms of hiring people, being able to get who you want, all those types of things. Plus, at Carolina, we finished the season in Pittsburgh, and I was off and running, so I didn't have the extra year that Tom Coughlin had at Jacksonville, but I was going to have the extra year here at Houston to put things together here."

Of course, some things had changed.

The Panthers and Jaguars benefited from some very favorable terms as expansion teams. The talent in the expansion draft was better, for one thing, as the Panthers acquired some useful parts, including cornerbacks Rod Smith and Tim McKyer, nose tackle Greg Kragen, center Curtis Whitley, fullbacks Bob Christian and Howard Griffith, and wide receiver Mark Carrier.

But the real building blocks came in unrestricted free agency, when that system of player movement was still young.

In their first offseason, the Panthers signed free agents including Hall of Famer Sam Mills, safety Brett Maxie, pass-rusher Lamar Lathon, kicker John Kasay, and defensive end Mike Fox. The following offseason brought another bounty, as Hall of Famer Kevin Greene, tight end Wesley Walls, cornerback Eric Davis, and quarterback Steve Beuerlein arrived to add instant credibility to a team that won seven of its last 11 games.

In seven seasons, though, teams started to figure out that if they really wanted to keep their own guys, they needed to make sure they didn't get to the market. So the Texans weren't able to stock the shelves as aggressively as the Panthers had.

But he still found some useful players in the expansion draft, including cornerback Aaron Glenn from the Jets and guard Matt Campbell, who had played for him in Carolina.

In Houston, it was a slower build, but not without its highlights. Unlike the Panthers, they won their first game, beating the in-state rival Cowboys in their opener. (The Panthers lost to Atlanta in overtime in their first game, so it was close.)

"I thought we were heading in the right direction," he said of those early years in Houston. "We beat the Pittsburgh Steelers the first year, that was an 11-win team, and we went from four to five to seven wins. And then the fourth year was kind of one of those disastrous years, you know, where we had a ton of injuries and things just didn't work out."

Capers also coached the Panthers for four years, and saw things unravel at the end, so that part was familiar too.

"You're going to be working, competing against people, and you're not going to be as talented as they are when you first start out," Capers said of coaching expansion teams. "So to me the challenge, and sometimes you do your best coaching jobs when things are the toughest, OK, is keeping everybody tied together and fighting.

"Even our last year at Carolina (4-12 in 1998), we won our last two games, and to me, that gave me a sense of pride as the guys hung together and kept fighting through a difficult season. So, yeah, it's a challenge, but, hey, most of the guys in this business, you're in it because you enjoy a challenge. But I think about being the only guy in the history of the league to start two expansion franchises, it is something."

Even though it rarely ends well for the coaches of expansion teams, he was still their first in Houston, which means there will always be warm feelings. That's why Capers had a receiving line worth of visitors on Thursday. He visited with Janice McNair, late owner Bob McNair's wife, along with current owner Cal McNair. He saw Marc Vandermeer, the voice of the Texans, and former athletic trainer Kevin Bastin (now retired).

That wasn't the end of the reunion week. Capers' wife, Karen, made the trip as well, and she had dinner Thursday night with Dom's former assistant and breakfast Friday with their old travel agent.

It's been that kind of week.

But here's the part about Dom Capers that keeps him fresh, and has built a loyal army of fans throughout the NFL — he still loves the football. He's as excited to talk about a Nic Scourton as he is Kevin Greene, and he loves the ability to help young coaches like outside linebackers coach AC Carter along the way.

That's why he's been to as many places lately as a senior assistant, because people he helped along the way want him around. Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero was one of his quality control coaches in Green Bay. Now-Jets head coach Aaron Glenn brought him to Detroit when he was a first-time coordinator. So when a first-time position coach like AC Carter speaks with reverence about being able to work with Capers, well, that's a two-way street.

"As long as I enjoy coming in the office every day, I enjoy the coaching staff, I enjoy the players, I look forward to it," Capers said. "It's obviously a routine business, but it's all I've known for 54 years, 40 in the NFL. And as long as I feel that I can contribute, if I feel that I'm not at a point where I can't contribute anything, I won't do it anymore.

"When you're a young guy coming up, you always hope that you can get to the point where you can do it because you want to do it, not because you have to do it. And that's a good feeling. But I love being around these young coaches. I love being able to help them along in their journey because I was so blessed to have had some really good mentors who helped me along the way. I get more satisfaction out of helping the young coaches and players than anything else. Being able to hopefully give them some perspective over a long period of time in the league on what it takes to be successful.

"Watching those guys, Aaron played for me, and Ejiro was my quality control guy, watching them progress and knowing that the potential, what they could be, and trying to be able to help them along the way. You know, that's very satisfying to me."

So Capers is still willing to do the hard work, even if it's not as much work as he'd prefer sometimes. Friday was the 11-week mark from the surgery to repair the hamstring he tore during OTAs. Team orthopedist Dr. Durham Weeks told him he'd need three months to return to his normal routines. So he's got one week left before he can get back on the elliptical machine, back to his routine.

That's why Capers laughs when he's asked how long he wants to do all this. When you're 75, you get asked that a lot.

But for Dom Capers, the harder question might be what he'd do if he didn't have a season to build toward. He's known too many coaches who retire, and realize six months later what they really wished they were doing is breaking down film.

"As long as you have your health and you feel you can contribute and you enjoy coming in and enjoy the relationships, I know most of the players that have played for me when I asked them what they miss the most, they say the locker room and the camaraderie and being part of a team," Capers said. "I've been a part of a team since I was 6 years old playing Little League baseball, so as long as I enjoy it and feel I contribute something, then, yeah, I'll continue to do it, God willing.

"When it's something that you love to do, there's going to be ups and downs, no matter what you're doing. But when you love to do it, you're going to be doing it the rest of your life, and that's why I'm still doing it because I still have a love for the competition, the game day. I don't know what would replace those three hours on a game day, you know?"