2020 Texans: Billy O'Brien Canned
- Thread starter soxhop411
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Easterby has got alligator blood, that guy.
Is he running football ops now by default? Prior to the Texans, he served as a ‘character coach’, basically a personal development consultant, for the Pats and Chiefs. Not who you’d expect to rise to a football ops leadership role, and I wonder what the Rooney Rule advocates think about this use case.
Is he running football ops now by default? Prior to the Texans, he served as a ‘character coach’, basically a personal development consultant, for the Pats and Chiefs. Not who you’d expect to rise to a football ops leadership role, and I wonder what the Rooney Rule advocates think about this use case.
I honestly thought Adam Gase would be the first coach to be fired but Bill O Brien the GM definitely deserved to go. Awful GM decent coach. Gotta give him credit for winning the division and a couple of playoff games. Overall I would say he's perfectly mediocre as coach. Not the best but also not the worst.
If Easterby survives this, have to think McDaniels and Caserio are the favorites for HOU coach and HOU GM next year.
O'Brien the coach didn't show much this year either. He made a lot of dubious decisions on 4th downs, FGs, etc.
Why don't you count Vrabel as a BB guy? Vrabel spent all those years learning under Bill as a player plus he spent time under Bill O Brien as an assistant coach. Would you consider Mean Joe Greene a Noll disciple even though he didn't coach under him? I think your definition is kinda weird.
I don't consider Romeo O Crennel a BB disciple but a Parcells guy. I mean Romeo and BB both coaches under Parcells and Romeo is the same age as Belichek.
That Hopkins trade should have resulted in an immediate dismissal. The Texans are going to be bad for years now, BOB set them up for failure.
I don't have a problem with people considering Vrabel a BB disciple, but he never served as coach in any capacity under Belichick, so I personally don't consider him a real disciple of Belichick. I don't think that is a weird way to look at it but YMMV.
Breaking this out of the general-purpose Texans thread.
Amazing to me that Cal McNair would go so quickly from trusting BOB enough to let him make a widely panned trade that sent away the second-best player in franchise history for a 2nd-round pick, then turn around and fire him 4 weeks into the ensuing season. McNair hasn’t been the principal owner for long, so maybe he’s just getting his bearings; otherwise this is a sign of Jets-like incompetence in the owner’s chair.
Amazing to me that Cal McNair would go so quickly from trusting BOB enough to let him make a widely panned trade that sent away the second-best player in franchise history for a 2nd-round pick, then turn around and fire him 4 weeks into the ensuing season. McNair hasn’t been the principal owner for long, so maybe he’s just getting his bearings; otherwise this is a sign of Jets-like incompetence in the owner’s chair.
Ha! I specifically mentioned “NFL disciple” in my post because I was thinking about Saban. Newsome is a clever answer though.
...and that (Bolded) is why this...
...isn't going to happen. I mean, maybe Caserio, if he thinks he wouldn't be retained by a HC McDaniels. But with McDaniels pretty confident that he is the heir apparent in New England, and will have good, long-term-thinking, supportive ownership as long as he doesn't completely crater the franchise, and the best team culture he could possibly ask for, I don't know why he'd toss that aside. If McDaniels were going to jump at the first iffy-ownership HC job to come along, he'd have stuck with his first instinct in Indy.
Houston isn't a radioactive HC job the way the Jets and Cleveland have been, but compared to something like New England it's gotta look ugly.
Can we bring back BOB as a QB coach for Stidham and our practice squad? Wouldn't mind him in here under McDaniels.
Well, not sure if BB wants him back and 100% certain BoB would be looking for at least an OC if not another HC gig.
For the Texans, they have to have Chiefs' Bieniemy as their #1 target, no?
If McDaniels splits for a head coaching gig, O’Brien might be a fit for the OC position and also provide input into any young QB development.
I have lots of respect for him - between taking over the Penn State program during their darkest hour and raising a severely handicapped child.
I have lots of respect for him - between taking over the Penn State program during their darkest hour and raising a severely handicapped child.
Wasn’t there a fired HC who came to the Pats to finish out a season as a consultant? Schiano? could be a model.
Not that Watt is necessarily wrong, but also sets up a tough situation for the next guy...
This is like Eddie going from the mail room to associate editor of J Peterman
View: https://twitter.com/jamespalmertv/status/1313979617099706368?s=21
View: https://twitter.com/jamespalmertv/status/1313979617099706368?s=21
This is why Pats should stay 100% away from BoB.
He schemed to get his former GMs fired, brought in Stewart Sma...I mean Easterby then got schemed by the motivational guru and got fired himself.
Eh. I dont think Easterby pushed him out. I think BoB did a shitty job and got fired. Houston promoting Easterby shows the failing off Texan officials, not BoB.
I've listened to way too many podcasts talking about the firing but there seems to be enough smoke to suspect Easterby winning the power struggle:
However, it does look like the straw that broke camel's back was when J.J. Watt had it out with BoB during practice:
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/30063815/sources-houston-texans-jj-watt-had-heated-exchange-bill-obrien
Like the Jets, a lot of talk about Cal McNair's leadership as the owner of the franchise. He put his stamp of approval when Billy-O wanted to trade away Hopkins, trade for Laremy Tunsil + Kenny Stills, then overpay Tunsil with a $66m extension with $50m(!) guaranteed. Now, he has fired the architect of those deals within a year.
Pats (scheduled to) play at Houston on 11/23.
I think there's an answer somewhere in the middle here. If you look at O'Brien's tenure, he couldn't wait to force out GM Rick Smith when Smith took a leave-of-absence because of his wife's cancer. Originally it was reported Smith would return in some capacity; never happened. O'Brien brought on Brian Gaine; that marriage lasted less than 18 months. Then Easterby gets promoted, and now he and O'Brien can't get along? So it may not have been an ouster / power struggle so much as Texans management getting sick of O'Brien fighting with his personnel head constantly.
It's fair to argue O'Brien did a poor job in some respects, but usually guys don't get fired for an 0-4 start after consecutive playoff appearances. So I put some credence in personality issues being a factor here.
Other than BB, which head coaches have been successful exercising ultimate personnel authority? It’s the overwhelming exception to the rule that the two jobs (which are not as complementary as one may think) are generally too difficult for one person to execute well.
And why they thought giving BOB (who just isn’t a Parcells or Mike Shanahan level coach in terms of resume and cred) that kind of authority is beyond me.
And why they thought giving BOB (who just isn’t a Parcells or Mike Shanahan level coach in terms of resume and cred) that kind of authority is beyond me.
Parcells, Bill Walsh, Jimmy Johnson. People don't usually report on Andy Reid that way (since he has always had someone with the official GM title), but he's presumed to have ultimate control over the 53. Jon Gruden does, too. In Cincinnati, Mike Brown is officially the GM but Marvin Lewis was presumed to have a ton of personnel sway (unsure if Zac Taylor does). Pete Carroll was the ultimate authority in Seattle initially; not sure how he and John Schneider divvy up duties these days. Same with Kyle Shanahan / John Lynch in SF. It's not all that uncommon, and great minds like Belichick, Parcells, and Walsh were pretty firm that it's a better system.
That said, I'm not at all a fan of giving a lame duck head coach GM authority with the idea that it takes away their excuses. It just encourages them to make dumb, short-sighted moves to save their job, which almost never works and often hurts the future.
Parcells had George Young managing personnel decisions for his successful run in NY, and then didn't really have full GM authority in New England, ending with the Terry Glenn situation. He's not a great example.
Also, any pre-salary cap examples are effectively irrelevant.
Also, any pre-salary cap examples are effectively irrelevant.
Texans should stop trading away first round draft picks.
View: https://twitter.com/billbarnwell/status/1343301481122947074
View: https://twitter.com/billbarnwell/status/1343301481122947074