Anthony Weaver has been along for the ride since 2016 when the Houston Texans hired him as their defensive line coach.
In his fifth season with the team, Weaver has taken on the added responsibility of being the defensive coordinator. Reaching this pinnacle of his coaching career indebts him to coach Bill O’Brien.
According to Weaver, O’Brien isn’t a one-dimensional figure in a ballcap standing on the sidelines, occasionally shouting at officials. Behind the scenes, the 51-year-old is a multi-faceted leader who endeavors to improve, just as he asks his players and assistants to do.
“Every single year I’ve been here, he’s undergone some kind of transformation for the better,” Weaver said. “It’s not every person — a lot of people don’t do that. You’ve got to be able to set yourself aside and be able to look at the big picture and realize where you need to grow as a human being.
“I tell people all the time, you’re either growing or you’re dying, whether you’re a player or a coach in this league. He understands that.”
For Texans fans, the team is in limbo. In four of O’Brien’s six seasons as coach, Houston has won the AFC South with two of those seasons yielding wild-card wins. No matter how great or how frustrating the season is going, save for 2017, Texans fans can count on their team to win the division, not secure a bye, and be out of the playoffs by mid-January.
Texans fans have to wonder: if O’Brien is undergoing positive transformation each offseason, why hasn’t it manifested in deeper treks into the playoffs?
“The thing that people don’t realize about Coach is that you only see the one dimension that you always see on TV and on the sidelines, but there’s so many more layers and depths to him,” Weaver said. “He’s a tremendous person and he continues to get better and look at himself in the mirror to try to get better each and every day.”
One party that does get to see O’Brien behind the scenes daily is ownership, and chairman and CEO Cal McNair decided to go all-in on O’Brien, giving him the full responsibility of general manager. Though it took trading away their two future first-round picks and a 2021 second-rounder, O’Brien fixed Houston’s problems at left tackle by acquiring Laremy Tunsil from the Miami Dolphins. Tunsil earned his first career Pro Bowl with the Texans last year.
What is positive about O’Brien’s constant growth behind the scenes is it has helped the Texans stay in the hunt. Rather than being a flash in the pan, Houston has been a somewhat fixture in the AFC bracket since O’Brien’s 2014 arrival.
“I don’t have enough good things to say about him,” said offensive coordinator Tim Kelly, who also worked with O’Brien from 2012-13 at Penn State. “I don’t necessarily think I’d ever say soft, but he’s not a thousand miles an hour, super competitive, ultra-intense all the time. But again, it’s been a real honor working with him the past nine years and looking forward to continuing that.”
Houston pro football fans may not believe the reports from behind the scenes, and they won’t until the results manifest in a conference championship game appearance at a minimum. Nonetheless, O’Brien fights the battle for growth and transformation to keep the Texans competitive in a league of parity.
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