When decisions must be made, O’Brien drops the ball in playoffs
Updated Friday, January 17, 2020
Bill O’Brien is a better-than-average football coach. He’s developed rapport with most of his players wherever he’s been. No one is better at guiding young men through adversity. Prior to becoming head coach of the Houston Texans he steadied a Penn State program reeling from the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal.
O’Brien is a bold and capable big-picture strategist. After running off a couple of general managers he gained roster control, and last September he remade the Texans. He traded two first-round picks and a second for a 25-year-old left tackle, Laremy Tunsil, and a speedy slot receiver, Kenny Stills.
O’Brien is widely faulted for giving too much in the Tunsil deal, but I don’t think that’s fair. Barring injuries, Tunsil will shield Deshaun Watson the way Duane Brown for a decade did for previous Houston quarterbacks. You don’t know what you’ll get from draft picks. Less than half the first round pans out.
And Stills, 27, is more than a throw-in. He caught a 54-yard touchdown in Sunday’s divisional playoff in Kansas City.
But where O’Brien deserves blame: too often outcoached, most notably in postseason games. He’s intelligent – Ivy League education — but not a quick thinker.
The best coaches decide in just a few seconds whether to toss a challenge flag, or what plays to call in the red zone. This is especially critical in the postseason, where teams are usually evenly matched.
The best coaches delegate. Bill Belichick let O’Brien call plays in New England. Kansas City’s Andy Reid is among the most creative of play designers, but his offensive coordinater, Eric Bienemy, directs the offense. O’Brien tries to do too much himself. He’s constantly overwhelmed by his own agenda.
The Texans’ epic collapse Sunday must be laid at O’Brien’s feet. It brought an outcry for his head, including from close quarters: Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle. Smith and countless other viewers wonder how Obie mismanaged a 24-0 advantage into a 51-31 defeat – first time in pro football history that a team leads by 20 points and then loses by 20.
Indeed, the Texans’ 21-0 lead – due almost entirely to superior special teams — was the best first quarter in the 20-year history of the franchise.
They had a chance for a knockout with 4th-and-inches on the Chiefs 13. But O’Brien wavered, befuddled. Leaping to the erroneous conclusion that he was about to be awarded a first down, he sent in a play designed for first down.
“I was thinking about challenging the spot,” he said, “because I thought we had the first down.”
Indeed, he should have challenged, especially considering he did not have a play ready for “fourth-and-inches in the red zone” – a stunning confession.
So he burned a timeout, eventually settled for a kick and a 24-0 lead. And that’s when momentum began to swing against Houston. The Chiefs’ special teams joined the game, rallied with a 58-yard kickoff return by Mecole Hardman. That set up Patrick Mahomes for his first of five touchdown throws for the day.
When the Texans faced 4th-and-4 from their 31, O’Brien – as if to compensate for his earlier passivity — called for a fake punt. The Texans were slow executing, making the Chiefs suspicious. Prior to the snap, Daniel Sorensen alertly advanced from the secondary to the scrimmage line. He tackled Justin Reid before he could turn upfield.
“I don’t know what they’re doing there,” said Bill Cowher, Hall of Fame coach and TV analyst. “You’ve got a big lead, you’re backed up in your own end.”
Chris Simms (NBC Sports) agreed: “The sleeping giant woke up when Bill O’Brien put some smelling salts under his nose. It was 24-7, and this was the turning point of the game. I didn’t like the timing of a fake punt when they were still in control of the game. After they did that, the Chiefs could not be stopped.”
O’Brien’s explanation: “I didn’t think any lead is safe against these guys. We needed 50 points.”
What an uplifting message for your defense. Self-fulfilling prophesy, almost. He actually needed 52 points. So why did he settle for 3 points on 4th-and-inches?
Besides his in-game failures, O’Brien creates distraction with his explosive temper. In New England he was famously filmed in a heated spat with Tom Brady. In Houston, O’Brien frequently was overheard berating quarterback Brock Osweiler in the coach’s office. Players said it was unsettling to morale.
There was another unfortunate episode last month. As the Texans headed through an NRG tunnel at halftime, trailing Denver 31-3, O’Brien yelled to a heckler: “Hey, you suck, too, mother-f—er.” TMZ aired the video/audio, prompting a public apology by O’Brien.
Once a coach loses his composure and gets crossways with fans, his tenure is doomed. I saw this happen when covering the Houston Rockets beat. Future Hall of Famer Bill Fitch at courtside challenged a heckler to a fistfight. Within a few weeks, Fitch was fired.
Texans CEO Cal McNair isn’t ready yet to pull the plug on his coach, though Jason La Canfora reports that O’Brien might get shorn of the general managership he does not want to relinquish.
In six years in Houston, O’Brien has five winning records and four AFC South titles. As a retired Rockets star, Scottie Pippen, recently observed, “Houston does not demand championships.”
O’Brien’s 0-4 for divisional playoffs is acceptable in a city that’s never sent a team to a Super Bowl and doesn’t expect to. At a time when Eric Bienemy, who so thoroughly outcoached him last Sunday, is deserving a promotion, O’Brien hangs on, however tenuously.
