Tag: Bill O’Brien

Brandin Cooks reflects on the Texans’ firing Bill O’Brien ahead of Jaguars rematch

Houston Texans receiver Brandin Cooks remembers what it was like the week they fired Bill O’Brien before facing the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2020.

HOUSTON — The Jacksonville Jaguars fired Urban Meyer as head coach, and promoted offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell to fill in the vacancy against the Houston Texans on Sunday.

For a team in significant turmoil following the departure of Meyer, the Texans may have a prominent opportunity to add another win to their 2-11 record. But Houston could receive the best version of the 2021 Jaguars at TIAA Bank, given the high motivation Jacksonville will have following Meyer’s jettison.

It’s what wide receiver Brandin Cooks experienced in October of 2020 following the Texans’ decision to part ways with former coach Bill O’Brien.

“I think the biggest thing that I remember was understanding that we still had a job to do,” Cooks said following practice on Thursday. “It was just about us and sticking together and keeping the train moving. That was the biggest thing that I could remember during that time.”

The Texans fired O’Brien four games into the 2020 campaign after a 0-4 start. In their first game following O’Brien’s release, the Texans recorded a 30-14 victory over the Jaguars at NRG Stadium — with Romeo Crennel serving as interim coach.

Although the Texans finished the season with a 4-12 record, Houston’s first game following the dismissal of O’Brien demonstrated the renewed focus a team has as a result of an in-season coaching change.

In the most recent example of a coaching departure, the Las Vegas Raiders emerged victorious 34-32 over the Denver Broncos in Week 6 after Jon Gruden resigned.

Similarly coaches missing games due to COVID has its own dynamic, as the Dallas Cowboys beat the New Orleans Saints in Week 13 without Mike McCarthy, and the Cleveland Browns won a playoff game last year without coach Kevin Stefanski.

“I think it’s just energy because everyone is counting you out at that point,” Cooks said. “You almost have a little bit more of that underdog mentality because you’re not with the head coach you started with. It just energizes this team a little more.”

In addition to playing a team that recently canned their coach, Cooks has not omitted the challenges of the Jaguars’ on-field defensive talent.

“I think they’ve been playing at a much higher level than the last time we played them,” he said. “Those guys are flying around. That front seven, those guys on the back end led by Shaq (Shaquill Griffin) and Cam (Robinson), you know those guys can run. You talk about Josh Allen and (Myles Jack) flying around making plays. I think they are playing at a much higher level than they were Week 1.”

6 mistakes from the Cal McNair era that have wrecked the Texans

The Houston Texans are 2-10 and most of it is because of top-down decisions. Here are six mistakes Cal McNair has made since taking over.

The Houston Texans underwent significant change near the end of the 2018 season when founder Bob McNair passed away on Nov. 23, 2018.

Cal McNair took over as the chairman and CEO of the team. The Texans finished out that year with an 11-5 record and won the AFC South.

The first offseason — 2019 — was where the Texans started to take on water that ultimately has shipwrecked the team in 2021. For the first time since 2005-06, the Texans have put together double-digit loss seasons, and they have been shutout multiple times in the same season, an unprecedented feat.

Here are six mistakes that happened when Cal took over that have hurt the franchise.

Zach Cunningham is the latest Bill O’Brien cornerstone to crumble

The Houston Texans allowed Bill O’Brien to lay the cornerstones, and a year later, they have crumbled, the latest being LB Zach Cunningham.

Flashback for a moment: Aug. 30, 2020. The population of Houston was trying to both survive the height of the pandemic while simultaneously recover enough from the Kansas City playoff loss the previous January to start another season. On this date, it was announced that Zach Cunningham had received a mega-extension. The deal was 4-years and $58 million dollars for one of the NFL’s blossoming inside linebackers

This was Bill O’Brien’s vision: Cunningham was the modern inside linebacker to captain the defense for years to come and to begin transitioning the defense away from the stewardship of Bernardrick McKinney, who was showing himself to be a liability in coverage. The former 2018 Pro Bowler wouldn’t work against the likes of AFC powerhouses like the Chiefs.

The 2020 season was, objectively, a disaster for the Texans. The team went 4-12 and the defense was a far bigger mess than the offense. They were bleeding — constantly. However, despite finishing 30th in points allowed and 32nd against the run, Cunningham had still held his worth. No. 41 led the NFL in total tackles with 164 and solo tackles with 106.

Fast forward not even one year later, and barely 16 months from when the contract was signed, and Cunningham has officially been waived by the Houston Texans.

Life comes at you fast.

Coach David Culley cited that, “We have standards, and I did not feel like our standards were met consistently.”

“I feel like I made a decision that was best for our team,” said Culley. “It is not about one individual.”

A sentiment that was clearly supported by Cunningham’s multiple missed games during the 2021 campaign.

Regardless of whether or not there’s truth to the speculation of the linebacker’s behavior within the locker room, this development is the latest in a series of abject failures by the Texans old regime. This decision fails all three lenses whether you support Houston’s current leadership or not.

Objectively: The Texans have opted to eat a $13 million dead cap hit during the 2022 season rather than roster Cunningham. That is a very large number, regardless of whether or not you believe the team should be trying to be competitive in 2021. That money could be going to young players in a historic undrafted free agent class or to attract free agents who will certainly need some encouragement to join the rebuild.

If you support the current ownership, it must be acknowledged that this was a an Easterby contract negotiation. O’Brien said so himself. The root cause of misidentifying talent and overpaying them still plays a deeply intimate roll in how the Texans are run in both their day-to-day operations and the long-term vision.

If you are hypercritical of the Texans, as many fans are cynically becoming, then this is another example of a talented football player acting out and wanting nothing to do with the perceived clown show on Kirby Drive. Defensive coordinator Lovie Smith couldn’t find a way to use one of the best players he inherited from the 2020 roster and it will surprise very few if Cunningham becomes a meaningful contributor when he lands on an NFL roster that knows what they’re doing.

The vision was so simple before the 2020 season. Watson was to serve as the face of the franchise, Cunningham was going to captain the defense, and Laremy Tunsil was going to anchor an offensive line that could allow Watson to thrive. The Watson pillar, regardless of any deniability, has been fallen for months now. Now, the second pillar falls and Cunningham is only serving the Texans’ as a ghost with a monstrous cap punishment for next season.

Don’t ignore that it appears very possible that Tunsil may be on his way out, too. The two-time Pro Bowler had a thumb injury that required surgery, maybe could play through it, and has now gone into the phantom zone of “day to day.”

The foundation has crumbled in Houston and fans have been left with only the ashes of what appeared to be such a promising future. Hope will rise again, as it always does in the NFL when the off-season comes and the draft happens, but it will be hard not to lament how quickly this team fell.

Flashback: Texans EVP Jack Easterby negotiated the Zach Cunningham extension

According to then-coach and GM Bill O’Brien, Houston Texans EVP of football ops Jack Easterby handled much of the LB Zach Cunningham extension.

The Houston Texans made another surprising move on Wednesday when they released linebacker Zach Cunningham.

What made the move surprising was Cunningham was the NFL leader in tackles in 2020 with 164, which came after he signed a four-year, $58 million contract at the beginning of that season.

Discipline issues were a large reason why the Texans parted ways with their former 2017 second-round pick from Vanderbilt.

When the Texans signed Cunningham to an extension in August of 2020, then-coach and general manager Bill O’Brien stated that the linebacker had the qualities they were looking for in a player.

“I think the way myself and [executive vice president of football operations] Jack (Easterby) and [director of football administration] Kevin Krajcovic and [chairman and CEO] Cal (McNair) think about this is, if a guy is playing well and is a good person and a really good person in the community, you’re going to do whatever you can to try to make that guy a part of your team for a long time,” O’Brien told reporters on Aug. 31. “A long time based on you agreeing with their representation on what the term is and all those different things.”

According to O’Brien, Easterby handled much of the negotiations with Cunningham’s representation at Athletes First led by Kevin McCarthy.

“Really, to be very, very honest with you, Jack Easterby did a lot of this negotiation,” said O’Brien. “I was there. I’m coaching the football team. We have a very unique model. I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll say it again. I don’t mind saying it. We, Jack and I, work together. We’re all in charge of different things, so relative to how a general manager’s position has been defined in the past may not be exactly the way we do it, if that makes sense.

“I coach and I work with Jack and he works extremely hard with the things that he’s in charge of. He oversees a lot of different things from medical to training. He works on contracts with Kevin and we work together. It’s a team. It’s a team. Hopefully we can win and prove that’s the way to do it. I would say that Jack and Zach’s representation should get a lot of the credit for getting a deal done, and obviously Zach.”

O’Brien was fired after an 0-4 start in 2020. Easterby assumed the role of interim general manager until the hiring of Nick Caserio as general manager on Jan. 5, 2021.

Is Bill O’Brien about to be a head coach again?

Former Penn State head coach Bill O’Brien mentioned as potential candidate for Virginia Tech

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Stepping aboard the coaching carousel rumor mill can be a dangerous task this time of the year. Coaching rumors can pop up out of nowhere as agents start using their candidate for specific jobs, message board members throw stuff against the wall to see what sticks, and the next thing you know USC is nabbing away the head coach at Oklahoma and LSU is backing up the Brinks truck to hire Notre Dame‘s head coach. It was a wild couple of days on the coaching carousel, and we are not done just yet.

Former Penn State offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead is still reportedly the favorite to be named the next head coach at Akron. But another offensive coordinator with Penn State ties could also be landing a head coaching job. We’re speaking, of course, of the one and only Bill O’Brien.

O’Brien, now the offensive coordinator at Alabama, could be a candidate for the head coaching vacancy at Virginia Tech. Maybe this is just one of those rumors that will ultimately go nowhere, but O’Brien landing the Virginia Tech job could be an interesting fit.

Virginia Tech fired Justin Fuente as head coach on November 16 after compiling a record of 43-31 in the previous six seasons. Fans had grown disgruntled over Virginia Tech trending in the wrong direction after a great first season in Blacksburg. That puts Virginia Tech in a tough spot needing a head coach at a time when the top programs in college football are hot-swapping coaches on the fly right now. Not that Virginia Tech was about to pay big bucks for Lincoln Riley or Brian Kelly, but Virginia Tech is in need of a solid hire that wins over the disgruntled fanbase and can establish a solid foundation.

O’Brien’s previous time as college football head coach at Penn State should suggest O’Brien could be a good fit for what Virginia Tech needs. O’Brien is not without his critics, of course. His tenure as a head coach with the Houston Texans ended in a messy situation, and he has been on the receiving end of a good amount of criticism for his playcalling as Alabama’s offensive coordinator (even if he does have a quarterback that could win the Heisman Trophy this season).

O’Brien spent two seasons as the head coach at Penn State, in 2012 and 2013. Coaching at the onset of NCAA sanctions stemming from the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky scandal that rocked the core of the football program, O’Brien managed to coach Penn State to back-to-back winning seasons despite a massive loss of scholarships and a large number of key players deciding to transfer to other schools after the NCAA granted immediate eligibility to nay player choosing to leave Penn State.

O’Brien, who never shied away from his desire to one day coach in the NFL as a head coach, took the opportunity to coach the Houston Texans after his second season in Happy Valley. Penn State hired James Franklin to be O’Brien’s successor in 2014.

Alabama head coach Nick Saban has been one who has added coaches to his staff who were removed from their previous positions, allowing coaches to rebuild their credibility and stature. Former Alabama coordinators that have gone on to become a head coach again have included Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, and Butch Jones, just to name a few. O’Brien could certainly continue that trend in the near future.

If O’Brien returns to the college football sidelines as a head coach, Virginia Tech would seem to be a pretty good spot to do so. But time will tell if O’Brien truly is about to be a head coach again or not.

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Texans vs. Jets series history: New York leads 5-3

The Houston Texans take on the New York Jets in Week 12. Here is a look back at the series history between the two sides.

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The Houston Texans and New York Jets don’t meet one another very often; sometimes it is every three years, other times it could be the very next season as part of the NFL’s same place finisher formula.

The two sides will face one another with 2-8 records Sunday at 12:00 p.m. Central Time at NRG Stadium.

The Jets lead the season series against Houston with a 5-3 record. So far, the series history has ebbs and flows: the Jets started out with a five-game winning streak, and the Texans have been on a three-game winning streak since 2012.

Can the Texans make it four in a row with the 2021 matchup?

LSU Morning Rush: More carousel talk, ‘Consider everything. Believe nothing’

The coaching carousel news cycle continues to spin…

Get your popcorn ready. We are in the home stretch with just two weeks remaining in the regular season. OK. One week from today is the season final for the LSU Tigers. With that said, it is time for coaching carousel talk; I know you love it.

As Ross Dellenger pointed out on Twitter, you should consider everything but believe nothing. The thing to consider when digesting news surrounding potential candidates for a job is everyone has an agenda. Either they are providing quality intel on a situation or it is agent-driven to help get their client get a new deal. There is a third option, throwing things against a wall and seeing if it sticks. Differentiating among them is the difficult part.

Take for example the Bill O’Brien chatter. It didn’t sit well with the LSU faithful. Meanwhile, the Alabama fans would love it. Why is that? Well, the fan base in Tuscaloosa would love nothing more than to shove O’Brien off to one of their rivals — or anyone that would take him. Questionable calls have left the fans scratching their heads. Who would have thought the heat on O’Brien would have Tide fans happy with Pete Golding? Who, I might add, they were ready to send to Austin with Steve Sarkisian nine months ago.

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O’Brien wasn’t the only name being pushed on Friday. We heard from one Kentucky insider that Mark Stoops was in the running for the job as well. Why would we see Stoops’ name get thrown into the mix? Why not? Being associated with the LSU job earned Jimbo Fisher another contract. Mel Tucker is on the verge of signing a 10-year extension. It will probably get Lincoln Riley and Stoops a new extension as well.

When it comes to the validity of Stoops’ candidacy, I might believe it was real if he didn’t have a $20 million buyout attached to his name.

It seems as though LSU is getting everyone paid while not having to pay any of them. Welcome to the agent season portion of the coaching carousel. Also, who is Jimbo Fischer? All kidding aside, who hasn’t misspelled a coach’s name on Twitter.

On the topic of coaches who were once linked to the LSU job, did James Franklin admit he was staying with Penn State?

According to Neil Rudel of the Altoona Mirror, via Twitter, Franklin received a positive reaction from the State College Quarterback Club when he told them he plans on staying at Penn State in 2022.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Franklin reportedly told the crowd of up to 200 people on Wednesday.

Consider everything, believe nothing.

LSU Fan Reax: How the fanbase took the news of Bill O’Brien being in the mix

“If Bill O’Brien becomes the next LSU head coach and I have to deal with this dude again… I am forever just giving up on sports.”

The LSU Tigers are deep into their hunt for the next head coach. Many have speculated names such as Jimbo Fisher based on his ties to current athletic director Scott Woodward. We have written about the laundry list of names, even mentioning one Bill O’Brien who seemed to be back in the news on Thursday and Friday.

On ESPN Rece Davis, a noted Alabama alum and host of ‘College Game Day’ stated he believed O’Brien would be the next head coach of the LSU Tigers. O’Brien is currently going through the Nick Saban coaching rehabilitation program at Alabama.

As you might have expected the fans didn’t take the news very well and for good reason. If Scott Woodward did end up hiring, or at the very least announcing that O’Brien is set to become the head coach we have a situation. I am talking about Tennesse and Greg Schiano-type situation.

Here is how fans took it.

Was former Texans coach Bill O’Brien trying to get fired to take over for Bill Belichick in New England?

ESPN writer Seth Wickersham’s new book “It’s Better to Be Feared” alleges Bill O’Brien tried to get the Houston Texans to fire him.

Was Bill O’Brien so bad in his final year with the Houston Texans that he was trying to get fired in an effort to take over for New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick?

According to ESPN’s Seth Wickersham, that may have been the plan, and the details are in his forthcoming book “It’s Better to Be Feared,” which chronicles to latter days of the Tom Brady and Belichick partnership.

Owner Robert Kraft, Brady, and others talked about scenarios to replace Belichick, and O’Brien’s name came up in scenarios wherein offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, a natural successor to Belichick, left for another gig.

“The plan was fanciful,” Wickersham writes, “but O’Brien heard about it. He was in a power struggle of his own in Houston, fighting with general manager Rick Smith, a ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘toxic’ situation, according to the Houston Chronicle. The leaks from O’Brien’s camp, claiming he wanted out, were so aggressive as to be suspicious, as if he knew he had a golden parachute. In the end, though, the [Texans] chose O’Brien over Smith, giving the coach more control over football operations. O’Brien later joked to a confidant that it was a somewhat empty victory. ‘I was trying to get fired,’ he said.”

The timing on the plan is all wrong and needs further fleshing out.

First of all, O’Brien “won” his power struggle with Rick Smith in January 2018 when Smith stepped away to spend time with his wife ill with breast cancer. The Texans hired Brian Gaine as general manager that month, and he wasn’t fired until June 2019. At that time, O’Brien started to have more influence in football operations, and was promoted to general manager at the end of the 2019 campaign.

From the time O’Brien allegedly heard the Patriots were going to replace Belichick, two regular seasons had passed: 2018-19. The Texans won the AFC South both seasons.

So, O’Brien purposely blew a 24-0 lead over the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC divisional because he was trying to make a good impression to Kraft and Brady? Does that also go for his trading of DeAndre Hopkins and the 0-4 start in 2020 that did lead to his dismissal?

More details are needed, because the results from that time frame are more indicative of an average coach who was wrongfully bestowed personnel power than a master plan to take over for Belichick.