Play calling is conservative because this team has poor NFL caliber QB's leading the offense. To consistently win with bad QB play shows that BOB is a good NFL coach. If he eventually gets let go here I can see him leaving and winning a super bowl just like Kubiak did. God help us if he went to the Colts and had Luck to work with.
Not sure about this. We're winning because of defense and bad division. Offense is one of the worst in the league Picking the right QB (and starting the right one) is part of his job
There's a lot more to coaching the entire football team than just compartmentalizing to individual components. For the most part, even with the reported unhappiness with the QB play, this has been a cohesive unit with good/great chemistry. The emotion they showed after winning the last game was telling. And its not like theres not a lot of big egos on this team. Hopkins, Clowney, Wilfork, Cushing, and Watt can all be as vocal as any other player in the league. On a less disciplined/less cohesive team, perhaps they start to cause more problems (see the Vikings). And, who gets credit for Savage being as prepared as possible (as a backup) to come in and contribute right away? There's a helluva lot that can get better... but those who choose to ignore the good and just harp only on the bad are missing some strong fundamental aspects that need to be on any football team that has aspirations of future success. Despite all the offensive issues, I wouldn't be envious of any of the other non-playoff teams of think that any of them are in a better position going forward... even the ones that seemingly have their QB situation all figured out (Colts, Titans, Ravens, Bengals, Jags, Chargers, Redskins Eagles, Saints, Bucs, Cards, Panthers).
OB is a good coach, IMO. This team just needs to get over the hump. His biggest mistake is not brining in a competent offensive coordinator. He absolutely has to take the backseat on the offensive end and focus on running the team. He's too hands on. If you want want to be a coordinator, then request a demotion.
I think Bill O'Brien's biggest mistakes since his rookie year is making a shot gun pass play when they are 3rd & 1, while the running game is doing so good. And he always fails at that!
Before Bengals game; MMQB http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2016/12/23/...l-obrien-texans-qbs-brock-osweiler-tom-savage
I remember the first game against Jax. We used double TE sets in the kryptonite zone and guess what? 2tds happened! play action roll out.
OB (w/Romeo) reminds me of a slightly worse version of Belichick without Brady and that's pretty good. Still it comes down to players. Look at Jason Garret. He was an awful puppet coach until he lucked into Dak and Elliott. He's still a puppet but he's a COY candidate now.
I know it's ridiculous but he's the front runner on a whole bunch of COY candidate articles and from the talking heads. I guess Dak and Zeke taught him how to coach. My point stands, players make coaches better and really good coaches help average players play better than average. Those coaches are rare but I think BOB has shown flashes of that.
This was in the MMQB back on Oct 1 and what it says about Brock, BoB and the organization's decision-making is spot on and very worrisome: 1. If we’re being honest, this must have been Bill O’Brien’s inner monologue around 10:35 p.m. ET last Thursday… I’ll preface this entire section with a disclaimer: Bill O’Brien knows quarterbacks better than I know literally anything. But anyone watching Brock Osweiler’s first three games as a Texan can’t help but notice: Osweiler looks an awful lot like the guy who was benched in favor of Peyton Manning’s reanimated corpse last winter. I’m not big into judging quarterbacks solely on numbers, but Osweiler’s give you a clue. Since an impressive debut in Chicago last November, he has a 10-to-9 TD/INT ratio over nine starts. He’s posted a 90-plus passer rating once in those nine games. If you look past the numbers, it’s even more worrisome. Of his four interceptions this year, two were products of a combination of Marcus Peters’ ball skills and sloppiness on the part of his intended target. But not counted among his four INTs are the three or four times a defensive back has gotten two hands on a throw and dropped it. The point is this: Osweiler’s ball placement is really bad (I wonder if it’s due to the difficulty of repeating throwing mechanics when you’re 6-foot-8). And his decision-making is baffling at times. Now the thing is: This isn’t a big problem. I mean, it’s a problem when your starting quarterback is playing poorly. But Osweiler is essentially on a two-year deal. If his next 30 games are anything like his last nine, that’s all it will be. And that’s fine. For all the “Broncos knew” lines being thrown around, they offered Osweiler a similar deal. (The fact that they were unwilling to challenge Houston’s deal and keep a player who was in their program for four years was a rather bright and garish warning sign, but let’s not pretend they threw him in the dumpster and moved on.) I had a hunch that Bill O’Brien was blowing smoke and was secretly targeting former pupil Christian Hackenberg in the draft last spring. Hackenberg is a reclamation project that will probably take about, well, two years. Then heading into 2018, decision time on Osweiler’s deal, the Texans would presumably be done grooming their project QB. But, as we now know, the Texans didn’t draft Hackenberg. For the second straight year, they didn’t draft any quarterbacks. They’ve had a rotating door of bad former Patriots backups (Ryan Mallett, Brian Hoyer). But in the past five years, despite all their problems finding a signal-caller, they’ve only drafted one QB: Tom Savage, 135th overall in 2014. (O’Brien’s former team spent two top-100 picks on quarterbacks during the same span. And they have, y’know, Tom Brady.) Savage, a big (6-4, 230) pocket passer in the O’Brien mold, is a mystery man to anyone outside the Texans facility. But the fact that he wasn’t deemed good enough to even compete with Osweiler this past summer is a clue about where he is. And here’s the thing: Even if Savage is secretly being sculpted into an NFL starting quarterback, his contract expires after 2017, just when the Texans will be facing a decision on Osweiler. The Texans could be back at square one in 16 months. So Osweiler’s contract seems to scream “placeholder.” But the Texans depth chart says “he’s our only hope.” And that isn’t a big problem either, except for this: The developments of the past week were a punch in the crotch (what, do you have a better metaphor for being moved emotionally in a negative way?) that J.J. Watt is not going to dominate the NFL indefinitely. Having Watt on your roster allows for a certain margin for error in team-building. You can go with Brian Hoyer as your quarterback and win games. You can have your No. 1 overall pick top out at “pretty good” and still have a dominant defense. (And make no mistake, while Jadeveon Clowney has been decent in 2016 he has not turned a corner. Did you see his lone sack of the season in the highlights? Of course not. That’s because it was Jay Cutler drifting toward the sideline for eight seconds before Clowney clipped his heel as Cutler stepped out of bounds.) Even without J.J. Watt, the Texans can still win what might be a historically bad AFC South. But they probably can’t win a playoff game without him. Watt will be a 28-year-old with a history of back problems when next season kicks off. They might get the truly dominant Watt, the most valuable non-QB in the NFL by a wide margin, back at some point in the next two seasons. But they can’t count on having that guy for 16 games. O’Brien will take over the play calling when the Texans host a bad Titans team on Sunday. Maybe it’s just a matter of the coach getting to work more closely with his handpicked quarterback. Houston has to be praying that it is. If the Watt Super Bowl window hasn’t already closed, it may slam shut in the next year or two. And as far as finding the right quarterback goes in the Watt Era, it looks like it’s Osweiler or bust. And if the last nine games are any indication, it’s probably bust. As we all know now, it was bust with Osweiler and it leaves them in an awkward (and stupid) situation at QB where they will be paying a guy $18M to be a backup. Even though Clowney has really come on in recent weeks - making the Pro Bowl - one has to wonder just how far this philosophy of pairing a great defense with such a feeble offense can carry them. Expecting your defense to hold opposing teams to under 12 points just so you have a chance is not a recipe for success in my book. And, unless something drastically changes in the next two weeks, they are looking at another one and done in the playoffs...again.
"Even without J.J. Watt, the Texans can still win what might be a historically bad AFC South." Comments like this kill all credibility.
Why would I love Jeff Fisher, the NFL's all-time biggest loser of NFL coaches, who hasn't had a winning season 7 straight times? That's literally the complete opposite of Bill O'Brien. As to your question, the answer is simple - when you have crappy QBs, you get crappy QB play. If Brock can't play as well as Fitz and Hoyer under BOB, that's on him. Btw, I doubt you will find a quote anywhere of O'Brien referring to himself as any sort of whisperer or guru.
Amazing that people are complaining about 'not opening up the playbook' with a 4th rounder making his first career start while trying to clinch a playoff spot. Literally the minute the Texans were actually behind in the game, they became more aggressive on offense.
