O'Brien was still dumb enough to start Brock over savage in the playoffs, which wouldn't make sense if that was true
Had they cut him, he would have been guaranteed most of next years salary and we would not have been able to extend Hop most likely.
We would still be able to extend Hopkins just wouldn't have much salary cap space to work with next offseason.
Nope. O'Brien, for the first time since he's been here(except Derek Carr), did not go work out the QBs. Watson is 99 64/100% Rick's pick. Now does that mean O'Brien doesn't like Watson? Not at all. Once you're one of his guys, you're one of his guys. You saw him cover up Brock as much as he could, and those two did not see eye-to-eye from the get go. Yep. Rick controls the 53 man roster. Has since O'Brien's arrival. Been stated publicly more than once. 100% on Rick, who brought it to the McNairs, who told O'Brien. And as OB has stated many times, you do what the owner says. O'Brien's two must have requirements for a QB: 1a. Smart, 1b. Accurate passer. Brock has never been an accurate passer. O'Briens job was to put lipstick on that pig. He tried. The QB O'Brien had the most input on was Bortles. He didn't think Bortles was a first overall pick caliber QB. He had no option on Carr, that was off the table. Not true. Cutting Brock would only have put $16 million on our 2017 cap, less any monies another team who signed him. Trading Brock recovered about $10 million in cap space and put the $16 million back in McNair's pockets. We have $21 million in cap space right now.
Rick controls the roster and gets whoever the coach wants. Mallet isn't accurate but O'Brien loved him.
It's always interesting to see what parts of O'Brien's press conferences are edited out of the videos by team media staff, like: You guys have tried to improve the offensive line, and it still struggles at times. Is that ever frustrating for you? “No. I control what I control, which is coaching and what you see on the field. I really enjoy coaching these players. I really enjoy our guys up front. They are tough, they show up to work every day. You look at a guy like Chris Clark, (who has) played a lot of football in this league. He’s got great leadership qualities. We talked about Jeff Allen. Then you got a young guy like Nick Martin, who’s played, I think, very well. Then you have undrafted guys that have played a lot of football for us and played hard in (Greg) Mancz and Kendall Lamm. And then you have two young guys, (Julién) Davenport and (Kyle) Fuller, who we think are going to be real good. So, look, I really enjoy coaching those guys and I look forward to, every day in the offensive meeting, seeing them and coaching them and getting them ready for the game.” There was a time a couple of years ago when McClain or somebody asked O'Brien about 'who is in charge of what' between him and Rick and Amy tried to step in to stop the press conference and O'Brien pushed her back and said he wanted to answer that question... and did. Says who? Nobody loved Mallett, he's a total jerk. Always was. If he loved Mal so much why did they go get Hoyer after Fitzy left? And you're right, some of Mallett's practices were atrocious. He dirted more balls where we couldn't really even tell who he was even trying to target. Nobody wrote about those.
Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer are battling to be the starter. Each has taken reps with the first team throughout OTAs, minicamp and the first two days of training camp. "I think the city of Houston should be proud of both of them, O'Brien said. I think they are two good quarterbacks and I like both of them.” Big meanie, big bully Ricky probably forced Billy to say that.
I'm pretty sure that was done in preparation for adding (or so they thought at the time) Tony Romo. In hindsight now it looks to be a horrid move but it is nice we got D-hop's contract out of the way. Judging by what BOB has said about QB traits I think he probably would have been high on Mahomes (as was I). We STILL don't know who we were really targeting as Mahomes went earlier than expected to KC at #10. I will always wonder if they didn't really hope to get Mahomes there at #12 and when he went off the board decided to go ahead and take Watson as 2nd choice since they HAD to get a qb. Kinda like 2-3 years ago when Seattle jumped up right in front of us to get the receiver out of Kansas (name ?) after we traded up to get him and we took J. Strong right after. I agree that DW is most likely Rick's pick but I don't think that should be enough to save him. I KNOW Rick Smith needs to be replaced but I'm still up in the air with BOB. We just don't have the talent as a lot of our better players are old and have not been replaced with decent players (see Rick Smith rd's 2-4 the last few years). I'd like to see a new GM (or at least someone else making draft decisions) and give BOB another year or two with a better roster.
The Romo thing may or may not be true. But you can't waste a second rounder like that. They should have done more research. In my opinion, O'Brien was done with Brock (to save his rep) and so the Romo thing was irrelevant. Hopkins we could have signed either way. Plenty of capspace going forward. The Texans are obsessed with front loading the guaranteed portion of contracts for some reason. It means we have no room to sign extra guys now. I thought we wanted Mahomes as well but who knows. I think OBrien and Rick fell in love with Watson's winning. Either way it has worked out so far. You are right that we don't have much talent. Actually I would say we don't have much mid range and depth. We had enough elite players in Watt, Clowney, Bouye (for some reason let him go), Hopkins, Duane (could have been resolved with all our capspace), and some young guys have real potential (Fuller, Cunningham, Foreman and I still have hope for Kevin Johnson). But the trade ups and overpaying of free agents really killed the mid range talent and depth of the team. But that's OBrien's aggressive philosophy
I like Kevin Johnson but he misses multiple games every year. I don't know if it was possible salary wise, but I would not have been opposed to the Texans somehow keeping Bouye and letting K Johnson go.
Loved Mallett so much he had to be talked out of cutting him before a game by Rick Smith. Maybe don't waste your time replying to those with an obvious agenda.
There's still the question of who would be good enough to replace Obrien with? I don't see anyone out there better than Bill, personally.
Bill O'Brien also said its a collaborative decision between him and Rick Smith. Now when things aren't going right because of his coaching, its I control what I control, which is coaching and what you see on the field. I can't believe how niave some of you guys are.
