O'Brien should have learned his lesson in NE. He deserves tons of blame for this loss. Yes secondary was horrendous and just pathetic in so many ways. O'Brien should have known how bad the secondary has been playing all season long. The secondary is playing like they are just clueless out there. They may look decent against horrible QBs but against competent QBs, the Texans secondary are just pathetic. Bill O'Brien has cost Houston many games before because of his ultra-conservative play callings when trying to hold onto the ball to win the game. When Houston has the ball with a few mins remaining and a small lead, Bill O'Brien has always ran the ball and tried to milk the clock and then punt it back to the other team. There's justification for Bill O'Brien's conservative play calling the previous few seasons because of the dominant Texans defense that was able to get the stops and also the pitiful quarterback play. With Arian Foster, O'Brien was able to get away with conservative play calling because of Foster's brilliance running the ball and making something out of nothing. But this season it is indefensible, especially after the New England's game. The pitiful secondary is made worse without great QB pressure due to Watt & Mercilus being out. As great as Clowney is this season, alone he cannot create the pressure needed to bail out the pitiful secondary. Quintin Demps & AJ Bouye played a huge role in Houston's incredible defense last year & they turn the secondary into a strength. This season, the Texans' secondary has been incredibly porous and looked completely lost against competent QBs. Tom Brady, Alex Smith and Wilson has completely exposed and embarrassed this team's secondary. They had their way with the Texans secondary. Watson has been incredible this season and he is the main reason why the Texans even had a chance to win against those elite teams. To have the ball with a few minutes remaining while holding onto a small lead because of Watson's play, Bill O'Brien should have given his QB the freedom to make plays to win the game. But instead, Bill decided to go away from the player who gave the Texans a chance to win in the first place and opted to run the ball with a running back that is only effective if there's an opening because of their inability to create something out of nothing. With a horrendous O-Line and the opposing defense knowing the Texans will only run the ball and not attempt any pass, it is cakewalk for every single defense in the NFL. The worst run defense in the NFL could easily force a quick 3 & out in that situation. With plenty of time left to score and punting the ball back to the other team with a competent QB that has been embarrassing the secondary all game long pretty much guaranteed a Loss. At that point, it is actually better to let the other team score quickly so Houston can get the ball back with some time left on the clock to make the last scoring drive. That is why I completely understand the frustration Watson and Texans' fans had with O'Brien because we all knew that the Seahawks is going to win the game if the ball is punted back. It happened in NE and Deshaun Watson even said it then that he did not want to give the ball back to the other team because they will definitely score on this defense. Watson already learned his lesson to never punt the ball back and give great QBs like Brady or Wilson the opportunity to score with lots of time left on the clock. You can clearly see the frustration on the Texans offense because they all knew the game was loss when the ball was punted back. Bill O'Brien's conservative play calls in those situations is basically a slap to the face of Deshaun Watson because Watson was the major reason Houston had a chance to win and without Watson, the game wouldn't even been close, and with possession and the opportunity to seal the win, his coach decides to be ultra-conservative and ran the ball against a great defense that was expecting conservative play calling instead of trusting the player who was the major reason they were in position to win the game, to make plays. The fact that Watson already learned his lesson from the NE game but Bill O'Brien haven't, shows you that Bill is not capable to leading this team to win it all. I am hoping and wishing that O'Brien finally learn his lesson after this game. The Texans had the opportunity to win against the Patriots and Seahawks in New England and Seattle but O'Brien's conservative play calling cost the Texans both games. But unfortunately when the Texans are in this position again, O'Brien continue being conservative and handing the W to the other team. All great NFL coaches would know the foolishness of being conservative in those situations. They would know that defenses are expecting conservative play calling so they would call for an unexpected play call that would seal the win.
Yes it was 3rd & 4 I believe and the whole Seahawks team knew the Texans are just going to run the ball and not attempt anything else so it was cakewalk to force the punt. Remember when Watson got the 1st down when he kept the ball and ran himself? That's because the Seahawks defense was so aggressive to stop Lamar Miller because they knew O'Brien would be super-conservative and would only run the ball and try to milk the clock. That play alone should show O'Brien that the Seahawks defense was anticipating the run and was gearing up to stop the run and force a quick 3 & out. O'Brien was a fool in that situation because the Seahawks coaching staff all knew what the Texans were going to do and O'Brien just walked right into their trap despite clear signs that showed the defense already anticipated the Texans running the ball. It is a complete cakewalk for an elite defense when they already know what the offense is going to do. You can tell Deshaun was incredibly frustrated with O'Brien after the quick 3 & out because he knew it was a huge mistake being conservative against a great team like Seattle and giving them back the ball would guaranteed the game is over. The Seahawks defense struggled with Watson all game long because he kept them guessing. That is how you beat a great defensive team like the Seahawks. So when the Seahawks defense needs a quick stop and get the ball back in a hurry against a QB and an offense that gave them problems all game long, deciding to be conservative and have Watson hand off the ball to Miller is child's play for the Seahawks. It doesn't get any easier than that for Seattle's defense. At the most crucial possession, Bill O'Brien decides to make it the easiest defensive possession for Seahawks' defense, and very minimal effort was required for Seahawks to force a quickly force a punt. The same happened in New England. Bill Belichick & Matt Patricia was praying for and expected Bill O'Brien to be conservative at the end when New England needed to get the ball back. Pete Carroll and the Seahawks eyes lit up when O'Brien was ultra-conservative and opted to just run the ball. If Watson ran a play action, Hopkins or Will Fuller would be completely open downfield and they could have scored to iced the game. But Bill O'Brien is incredibly predictable with his decisions late in games as always. Against the Browns when Houston was up, O'Brien became ultra-conservative and Houston offense became stagnant but luckily the Browns offense was so bad that Houston never really worried about them.
Bill knows he should have called better plays he admitted that during the post game interview but i have also been saying Watson needs to do his own thing in those situations to get the ball down the field.
IIRC people here used to ride Kubiak hard for his "slow starts" on offense, which costs us the game 35-31 or some such. Don't be like those people.
Gotta live and die by the offense this year. Can't put the game in the hands of this deffense with this secondary against any QB who is half way decent. O'Brien better recognize this.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/pag...ll-obrien-houston-texans-trust-deshaun-watson Why doesn't Bill O'Brien trust Deshaun Watson with the game on the line? While it's still impossible to understand why O'Brien started the season with Tom Savage as his starting quarterback, the Texans coach deserves a ton of credit for what he has done since inserting Watson into the lineup. O'Brien has shifted his offense to play to Watson's strengths and reduce his adjustment time, adding option concepts out of the Clemson playbook to a scheme that employed the option just twice last season. The results have been laudable and revelatory. Watson's abilities as a runner have opened up holes for Lamar Miller & Co. in a previously moribund rushing attack, while the threat of Watson as a runner has slowed down pass-rushers who might otherwise have zealously attacked a middling set of Texans tackles. O'Brien also has added new wrinkles to the game plan every week to keep opposing teams on their toes. The results have been staggering; when you combine his effectiveness as a passer and runner, Watson's Total QBR currently stands at 81.8, the best mark in the league. On Sunday, it focused upon a package built first around a play-fake and Watson motioning to his left, where he also would have the ability to (but did not) throw a swing pass. The Texans then gave Watson a series of different looks, including a speed option that earned Houston a fourth-quarter first down. Most notably, the series set up the Texans for two big downfield passes to Will Fuller V, the first of which produced Fuller's second touchdown of the day. Defenses have to be terrified to line up against Watson snap after snap, which makes O'Brien's decision-making late in games even more curious. Twice now, O'Brien has gotten conservative when his team has been close to a huge victory on the road. In Week 3, facing a struggling Patriots defense, O'Brien elected to kick a field goal with 2:28 to go in the game on fourth-and-1 from the Patriots' 18-yard line in lieu of putting the ball in Watson's hands. The Texans went up by five points, only for Tom Brady to march down the field for a game-winning touchdown to break Houston hearts. Given that the Patriots game was really Watson's first breakout performance, maybe the Texans weren't ready to place the game in their rookie quarterback's hands. Given that Watson's offense had averaged 36 points per game over the three ensuing weeks and sliced up the Seahawks for 507 yards and 38 points heading into a critical third-and-short, it seemed unlikely that O'Brien would make another mistake. Instead, after running that aforementioned speed option for a first down on the previous possession, O'Brien got conservative. With everyone and their mother calling for Watson to get on the edge and reduce the Seahawks defenders to quivering messes, O'Brien called for the same motion with Bruce Ellington sprinting out of the slot and into the backfield and Watson ... handed the ball to Miller on a plunge against an eight-man box. Sheldon Richardson shed the oft-frustrating Xavier Su'a-Filo and made a relatively easy play in the backfield, stopping the Texans after 2 yards, at which point Houston punted. To the best of my knowledge, the Texans hadn't yet run that motion and immediately handed the ball to Miller as opposed to play-faking, so it's possible that O'Brien was hoping that the Seahawks would key upon the motion, get blown off the line of scrimmage, and create an easy running lane for Miller. It's also possible that Watson might have had the option to keep the football, although it's hard to figure out who he might have been reading that would have called for Watson to hand off the ball, given that the box was stuffed. O'Brien, for what it's worth, took the blame after the game, saying, "I made some bad playcalls today, and I just have to do a better job on game day." Seahawks fans must have breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Watson, who had seemed several steps ahead of Pete Carroll's defense for most of the game, hand off the ball. They must have felt even better when the punt unit came on. I don't suspect O'Brien ever gave it a moment of serious thought, but in a four-point game with his defense being shredded downfield, it might even have been the right move for O'Brien to keep his offense on the field and go for it on fourth-and-2 from his own 28-yard line, knowing that a first down would have ended the game. (That's not hindsight, either.) As it was, the Seahawks marched downfield in three plays. By the third, a Texans defense that had been chasing Wilson around all day and holding up in coverage 30-plus yards downfield fell apart. It's probably hindsight to wonder whether O'Brien should have been willing to stop the clock and call a timeout with 27 seconds to go, but watch Seattle's game-winning touchdown and you'll see a defense that is both physically and mentally exhausted. The pass rush is moving in slow motion. The defense behind it blows a coverage, leaving Jimmy Graham totally uncovered up the seam on a go route. O'Brien is coaching like he has the 2014-2016 Texans, who had a great defense propping up a suspect offense. The opposite is true here, especially with Houston down J.J. Watt, Whitney Mercilus and Brian Cushing. It has cost his teams two games that would have gone down as statement victories, road wins over perennial Super Bowl contenders. Maybe the Seahawks would have sniffed out Watson on the edge. We're not looking back at O'Brien's decision as egregious or part of a worrisome trend if the Texans hold up on second-and-20 or third-and-18 against the Patriots. In a suddenly competitive AFC South, though, the Texans are going to look back and wish they had trusted their franchise quarterback just a tiny bit more with the game on the line.
Skip: Same Bill O'Brien who did not start Deshaun Watson. What happens in next 3 plays? Time to go win the game & he takes it out of Deshaun's hands. Lamar Miller run, Lamar Miller run, Lamar Miller run, punt. All the sudden, Russell has the ball back. You don't give him the ball back. 3 plays, 80 yards, touchdown. ______________
I don't think he gets it. It's not all about coaching. If you give yourself one of the worst OLs and secondaries in the league, it's gonna be hard to win more than half your games, even with a great QB. Doesn't matter if you're bill Belichick.
Agreed. But a NFL head coach should know his team strengths and weaknesses. He should have a better grip on game management and clock management. He has to know to trust certain players. You have Watson averaging 8.7 a pop. You have both Hopkins and Fuller having tremendous games. So why are you put your faith in Miller and that Oline. And to top it off that sorry ash secondary That's coaching
He gets it. He has and will always take 100% responsibility for their losses, And he has and always gives 100% of the credit to the players and coaching staff for their wins. Head Coaches always pay for bad OLs and Secondaries here. Everything is always his fault, and he's credited with nothing -- except somehow some fool somewhere is blaming O'Brien for letting AJ Bouye walk. Because
He and Rick work together to build this roster. There are just too many holes to be better than average
That pick 6 was all on OBie. That 3 play 80 yard drive is all on OBie. Recall that OBie is bad at Offense and can not develop a QB. All credit for the great D is on the D coordinator and not OBie.
