Bill O'Brien stuck around just long enough to poison the Texans
O'Brien's out in Houston ... and he salted the earth behind him as he left.
We normally publish Monday-Wednesday-Friday, but Bill O’Brien supplanting Adam Gase as 2020’s first fired head coach merited a special edition of the Post Route. As always, it’s completely free for you because we like you so much. But hey, if you want to support this effort with a smidgen of your hard-earned cash — perhaps to buy us a fine Oktoberfest marzen — via our Ko-Fi page. We are eternally grateful for your support.
The good news for the Houston Texans is that Bill O'Brien has been fired. The bad news may be that he was ever hired in the first place.
In six-plus seasons, O’Brien recorded five winning seasons and zero trips beyond the Divisional Round of the playoffs. His postseason wins came over Connor Cook and the unset Jell-O mold version of Josh Allen. He won four of the Texans’ six all-time division titles and threatened no one in the process.
O’Brien’s biggest damage came because he was just good enough. Good enough to compete in an uneven AFC South. Good enough to earn a four-year contract extension in 2018. Good enough to serve as the team’s general manager — first by default, then officially — after Brian Gaine was fired during the 2019 offseason.
That’s where things got bad in Houston. O’Brien’s reign as a team-builder was a disaster. He made trades and signed free agents with the tact and patience of a drunk college student settling into Madden franchise mode at 3 a.m.
He bought into the Dolphins’ rebuilding plan by shipping two first-round picks to Miami for Laremy Tunsil, then failed to sign the budding left tackle to a contract extension in the immediate aftermath. When faced with the stark reality of allowing his prized acquisition to leave after just one season, he signed him to a record-setting three-year, $66 million deal. Most market-resetting contracts pay the player in question between five and 10 percent more than the previous top-paid player at his position. O’Brien’s “please stick around, or else I’m screwed” deal pays Tunsil 22 percent more than the next highest-salaried offensive lineman.
Starters like Tyrann Mathieu and D.J. Reader left in free agency and were replaced by Hydrox versions like Tashaun Gipson and Brandon Dunn. Jadeveon Clowney was traded for a third-rounder and two backup linebackers.
When a looming lack of salary cap space threatened to torpedo the contract extension perennial All-Pro (and Houston hero) DeAndre Hopkins wanted, he shipped the future Hall of Famer, only 28 years old, to the Cardinals for David Johnson and a second-round pick. He signed a 30-year-old Randall Cobb to 2020’s richest wide receiver contract (three years, $27 million), and traded a second-round pick for Brandin Cooks (10 catches in his first four games as a Texan) to replace Hopkins.
O’Brien was a mixed bag for Deshaun Watson. By waiting until the August before his final contracted year to sign his young QB to an extension, O’Brien allowed Patrick Mahomes to blow away the quarterback market with his $500 million deal. That upped Watson’s demand to $39 million annually — the second-highest rate in the league and one the Texans had no choice but to pay. That was, at the very least, expensive solace for a quarterback who responded to the departure of his top wideout with some serious side-eye.
Factor in the NFL’s Covid-related drop in revenue, and you’ve got a team that will be an estimated $11 million over the 2021 salary cap — a projection that could lead to J.J. Watt and his $17.5 million salary following Hopkins out the door. Replacing that veteran talent without cash to throw at free agents won’t be easy either. Houston won’t have a pick in either of the first two rounds in next year’s draft.
That’s right. This team is likely as good as it is going to be for next year-plus, and it’s currently 0-4 — winless in its first four games for the first time since 2008.
God damn.
Back before the season, I noted how O’Brien’s moves were undeniably bad, but at least shared a central theme. He failed to extract proper value for talented players and gave up draft picks and cap space to fit a very narrow vision. As regrettable as his trades and signings were, they followed a certain low-percentage goal of breaking through a threshold of greatness that always exceeded Houston’s grasp.
His priority was keeping his franchise quarterback under contract and protected. He sacrificed salary cap space, draft picks, and beloved veterans just to get there. The wins didn’t follow. No one took the Texans more seriously. The opposite happened.
That was O’Brien’s cross to bear in 2020. Now it will, briefly, be 73-year-old Romeo Crennel’s before the team makes a permanent hire sometime this winter. Whomever takes the job will get a roster dotted with a few stars while the rest of the AFC trots out galaxies. Unless the club immediately becomes the NFL’s most prolific Day 3 drafter, things will stay that way through at least 2022.
So who could take up the mantle of a team that’s been often good but never great the past decade? Transitioning from Mahomes to Watson behind center would be an easy shift for Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who will likely top most coaching wish lists. Robert Saleh’s star may be dimming as he guides an injury-riddled 49ers defense through some struggles, but he could be the call if Houston wants to focus on the other side of the ball.
Greg Roman helped Lamar Jackson transition from Heisman winner to MVP and could be similarly uplifting for Watson. Brian Daboll has, to the surprise of most NFL fans outside of western New York, turned Josh Allen into an MVP candidate and would fit Houston’s mold of “former Patriots assistant turned head coach” (see: O’Brien, interim coach Crennel).
Byron Leftwich has Tom Brady on track in Tampa and could be due a promotion. Mike LaFleur helped guide a Jimmy Garoppolo-led passing game to the Super Bowl and could soon join his brother among the HC ranks. Jason Garrett would be a perfect option to get the Texans out of the Wild Card Round and absolutely no farther.
No matter who gets the call, they’ll have to be able to turn 4-5 top-tier players and a handful of chicken shit into chicken salad. Coaching the Texans in 2021 will be, at best, a balancing act. It could be much worse if team V.P. of Football Operations Jack Easterby, who oversaw many of O’Brien’s questionable moves but remained untouched in Monday’s purge, sticks around and proves just as clueless about running a high-level NFL team as his resume suggests.
The Texans are screwed.
They have the tenets of a great offense but few viable options to improve around Tunsil and Watson. They have some top-notch starters on defense, but the holes in their secondary can quickly unravel any progress made by their front seven. A strong architect can rehabilitate this roster with smart moves, but the galaxy-brained management of O’Brien has left the next man up with few immediate ways to make any meaningful improvement.
In other words, Houston has all the strength necessary to roll a boulder most of the way up the hill. And now the Texans have fired Sisypheus.