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Bill O'Brien Hot Seat Thread - 2020 edition - GM/HC/OC/DC and Luxury Box sales


Texansfan713

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4 hours ago, ET80 said:

Is he though? I think he was really fortunate working with Sean McVay, and that led to this Titans gig. I'll give it time, see how that turns out - but honestly, I'm not overly impressed with what I've seen from that Tennessee offense.

Now - John DiFlippo? I'd listen to that.

honestly, lafleur (and really the entire coaching staff) has really impressed me given the ludicrous amount of adversity thrown onto him from day one. from a 7 hour marathon game in week 1 to half our goddamn offense getting injured, he's been crafty and aggressive with his playcalling and done a really admirable job of putting our very limited offensive personnel into good situations. that obviously hasn't really been reflected on the scoreboard, but hopefully we'll start to see that manifest as marcus gets healthy and has more experience in this offense. his head coaching prospects will certainly depend on that happening.

i will say, though, that he's a relatively soft-spoken guy in interviews. doesn't necessarily come across as a guy who's gonna bring down the house in head coaching interviews. but who knows? my guess is that he won't get a ton of play this year as our players continue to get used to the new offense, but if it starts humming by next season as titans fans hope it will i think he'll be a hot name by then. you saw a similar pattern with shanahan- decent production his first year in atlanta as ryan and the gang got used to the system, then they came back the next year with an absolute buzzsaw of an offense.

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52 minutes ago, Pastor Dillon said:

You can’t ever tell when a guy is ready. Who though Mcvay would be dominating the league so soon. 

Lets just not repeat the last 3 coaches by getting someone who will duplicate another franchises success. That’s failed repeatedly. Let’s go after someone new

Who? I'm all ears. Sean Ryan was largely responsible for that Watson O last season, and even had a few interviews (I think Vrabel even considered him before bringing LaFluer to Tennessee).

Last time I remember a position coach getting an interim HC job was Jeff Fisher, shortly after Jack Pardee was fired. I'm honestly terrified of this staff as a whole, but why the eff not? I mean 0-16 is a genuine possibility, IMO. 

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I'd challenge Texans fans to take this a step further.  FIRE THE OWNER!   This goes beyond just a coaching problem - he's just the latest scapegoat for a fan base and press corps that refuses to hold OWNERSHIP accountable for it's abysmal record of football related decisions.  This franchise is a fraud from top to bottom and has been since day one.  We stole a name.  We fabricated a stadium naming rights deal.   Everything about the NRG gameday experience is some sanitized unoriginal ripoff of what quality franchises build organically.  Our media presentation is as contrived and inauthentic as Vandermeer's hack "rock and roll" Td call and most other media members are so compromised by their duties to shill for corporate sponsors or protect their preferred access that at best we get surface level reflections of obvious problem areas rather than anything that replicates the standard by which most franchises are held to locally and our complete absence of national profile eliminates scrutiny.   We like to kid ourselves that we are somehow a rich and powerful franchise that is always on the cusp of greatness, but we peaked at 9-7 mediocrity with the occasional bogus banner to hang after a playoff implosion and ignore the fact that we are one of the worst 5 franchises of the century alongside the Jets, Bills, Raiders, and Browns.  

Every time the new Forbes list of "most profitable franchises" is published there should be a firestorm about the disconnect between the success of the business in the face of a product that has been objectively substandard yet the people in charge of it have an unprecedented level of job security.  We like to parade that our players are held to some higher standard of character, but is becomes more apparent every year that decisions starting with David Carr over Julius Peppers, defending and keeping Cushing, and plenty of double standards in treatment in player contracts is tainted by ownership's political and social biases which exceeds their desire to field a winning product. Ownership is always going to be accused of putting dollars over things like safety or fair treatment, but this team does so in a manner that is particularly self-destructive such as Duane Brown's contract, abusing Arian Foster against our financial interest, negligent treatment of Fido and KJ30's concussions, to the shoddy turf which claimed Demeco amongst others. Hell, throw in the times where ownership directly intervened in disasterous personnel decisions like Ed Reed, Osweiler, and picking up Carr's extension and they are more directly responsible for franchise lows than any Schaub interception or poorly executed 2 minute drill.  For God's sake, who the hell doesn't recognize that the answer to this franchise's prayers fell into our laps in Watson and that the window for a championship lies both in keeping him safe behind an offensive line and maximizing our chances BEFORE his rookie deal runs out and before JJ and Nuk start to decline. It's already clear we aren't winning with O'Brien which can at least be rationalized by projecting the 6 game stretch, but how the hell do you sign off on an o-line that risks Watson becoming just another RG3 flash of greatness or years of waiting around like with Luck?  Even if he physically survives, how do you not learn from the David Carr experience that even a season or two of getting battered can cause shellshock which in some respects is worse than the physical injuries.

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The situation we find ourselves in merely reflects the recurring pattern of ownership that is entirely comfortable selling false hope and rationalizes failure with no contingency plans whatsoever.  The mere fact that we can't even fire Bill O'Brien right now because he is the sole purveyor of offensive gameplanning or playcalling ability on this staff is the same situation we were in when they allowed Kubiak and Smith to hire substandard cronies until they brought in Wade Phillips to justify not firing Kubiak the first time.  Then it was Rick Smith consolidating power, now it's O'Brien.  It would not surprise me one bit if all we get after another season of clear evidence of substandard coaching and management that we get some intermediary step like bringing in an new OC or some other half-measure.  We couldn't even bring ourselves to even say we fired Rick Smith despite the obvious justification and instead of actually hiring one of the top candidates we settled for Brian Gaine who passed the test of not being a threat to BoBs ego while submitting to previous management's thrift store shopping model that has us throwing an extra $40 million to the bottom line in unspent cap.  At best the implosion of another season may cost O'Brien his job, but do we get a real search or do we just get some new guy that is connected to the Gaine chain of Dolphins, Texans, Bills mediocrity.  Maybe we bring in some "consultant" like we did with Reeves when we decided to become Broncos-South, but ditching Patriots-South to become Philly-West just deprives us of developing our OWN identity like the Rams are building. 

Ultimately, for me, the changes required go as deep as the soul of this franchise which remains perpetually stuck in its expansion mentality whereby the McNair's are treated as "saviors" of football in Houston rather than shameless profiteers who laundered their dirty Enron money through this zero risk shell franchise that churns out astronomical revenue that is completely disconnected from the performance of the product or satisfaction of its customers.  Until the Texans are faced with some representation that the demand for their product has some elasticity in the only terms they appreciate which is their pocketbook, the lack of accountability will never change.  I don't know exactly what that looks like, but it starts with fans that aren't content to just get drunk in the parking lot season after season as they renew their season tickets, but more importantly it has to filter up to the big dollar corporate sponsors and luxury box leaseholders who actually examine whether the money they pour into this is ever really going to payoff.   The diminishing returns have to start being felt as the novelty of bringing clients to an embarrassing football experience or associating your brand with a franchise defined by false hope and ineptitude. After nearly two decades, I would hope we could move past some blind need to support football in Houston because it was taken from us once and start actually placing demands upon performance without fear that it would ever be taken again, because the city has demonstrated what it brings to the table, the team has not.  I have no illusion that the McNairs would actually sell for any reason other than to cash out at it's peak value, my hope is that it becomes readily apparent that the bill for 20 years of failure is coming due like the bank notes they paid off and that given Bob's health,  the changing political landscape, and just how far away this team is from delivering a winner, better yet a championship, that he may let the next billionaire take a crack at actually taking the franchise to the next level like Crane and Fertitta are.

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On 9/23/2018 at 4:13 PM, jch1911 said:

I am starting to like the idea of LaFleur and keeping RAC with a few tweaks to defensive coaches (secondary).

Right now... I think the fact that OB1 has not replaced Devlin is a blatant attempt to get himself fired IMHO.

I hate to break up the RAC love-fest, but his defense has completely botched two of the biggest layup opportunities for defensive domination that a DC could possibly be presented with in Gabbert and the Titans duct tape o-line and Manning and the Giants line that made the Cowboys D look like it was 70's Doomsday era the week before.  The reality is that the talent on our defense could have reasonably have been expected to deliver single digit scores and probably throw in some scoring of their own, but he got completely outclassed by two first year coaching staffs despite a front 7 featuring 5 1st or 2nd rounders. I thought Vrabel was overrated, but judging from 3 games of effort so far, his motivational abilities are sorely missed as well as his instructional ability with the linebackers who's play has been abysmal thus far.  At least Vrabel has the excuse that he didn't have the talent to be aggressive last year, how the hell you draw up a gameplan against the Titans and Giants lines and QBs that doesn't relentlessly expose their weakness and force mistakes like Watson and our o-line are making is completely beyond me.   I'm not quite sure why RAC gets a pass for his promotion to assistant head coach last year somehow absolving him from the disaster that was our secondary which was healthy all season, as it's highly doubtful he was up in the booth and in the filmroom with all the answers but Vrabel just wasn't calling em right.  He wasn't retired, he ceded playcalling duties to give the young promising guy some experience and exposure to keep him around much like Shanny to Kubiak to Lil Shanny or Belichick to RAC to Vrabel. 

Hey, I love the big guy and his Denny's menu lanyard too and he's earned some benefit of the doubt for past success and development of some low rent guys like Reader, Bouye, and Hal, but he was handed another Pro Bowler in Mathieu, an upgrade in the slot with Colvin, amazing draft slot value rookies in Reid and Ejiofor and thus far he has JJ Watt doing JJ Watt things, and defensive performances against 3 of the worst 8 offenses (yep, Pats are actually worse than Giants and less than 50 yards better than Tenn) that has us ranked 20th (same as Vrabel's despite health and upgrades).  His defense's failure to step up and stop 4th quarter drives can be blamed in all 3 defeats as the offense has been effectively mounting comebacks and is ranked #6 in the NFL (as misleading as yardage totals can be).  Make no mistake, the money, free agent and the draft capital lie on the defensive side of the field on this team by a massive degree and their failure to set a tone in at least the past two games should be MORE shocking than our own duct tape o-line and a QB coming off an ACL and playing in his 8th and 9th NFL games. RAC's seat needs to be just a shade less hot than O'Brien's and Brad Seely is the only one who's unit is both improved and exceeding expectations (I give him a slight pass for the fake punt as it was a player who was on the team less than a week who botched it and it's the HC's job to see it and call the TO).   Let's not forget Crennel is one of the 3 highest paid coordinators in the NFL ($1.8 million), so it's not he's doing us a favor hanging around - he needs to produce.

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6 hours ago, Apollo Stallion said:

I'd challenge Texans fans to take this a step further.  FIRE THE OWNER!

Hey - I'm ALL for this, but outside of some Donald Sterling or Jerry Richardson level gaffe, how do you get that done? 

His comments on "inmates running the prison" or his defense of Richardson were absolutely cringe worthy, but not enough to drive him out. His treatment of cheerleaders made headlines, but that's easily dismissed by assigning blame to a cheer coach who can be best described as a pagent mother. 

So, what do you do? It took half a decade of #FireRickSmith to get that moving, what do you need to happen to get a man to sell one of the most valuable franchises in the world to cash out?

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7 hours ago, Apollo Stallion said:

I have no illusion that the McNairs would actually sell for any reason other than to cash out at it's peak value, my hope is that it becomes readily apparent that the bill for 20 years of failure is coming due like the bank notes they paid off and that given Bob's health,  the changing political landscape, and just how far away this team is from delivering a winner, better yet a championship, that he may let the next billionaire take a crack at actually taking the franchise to the next level like Crane and Fertitta are.

This might be the only saving grace, because you're underselling what Craine and Fertitta have done. They did more than take a franchise to a proverbial level, they took them to the pinnacle of their respective sports - and didn't stop there. 

The "Mendoza line" in Houston has gone up considerably. The Astros are positioning themselves for another WS run, the Rockets are still the only legitmate challenge to Golden State's current dynasty. When Bob took the top spot in Houston, the Astros were in the middle of their planned disaster and the Rockets were banking on something called a Moochie Norris. It was easy to lay claim to the hearts of Houston because everything sucked.

Notsomuch now. You two ACTUAL MVPs in Jose Altuve and James Harden (not just preseason fluff or "woulda-coulda-shoulda" MVPs). You have clutch performances on the biggest stages by legit stars like Springer and Verlander, not empty stats like run stuffs by guys propped up by "#1 pick in the draft" accolades. 

It's been a year, but the water line has raised. 0-3 in this fashion will sink this boat, and you're hearing it in the media and from the fanbase.

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1 hour ago, Pastor Dillon said:

I think we can all agree that there is no way BOB is fired before the end of the season. Maybe if we are winless at the bye week, but even then i doubt it. 

If we get rocked the next two weeks and are staring at 0-5, he may get canned. Especially if rumors of upset staff and players are true. The videos and photos of Watson getting lit up need to be plastered everywhere. 

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When was the last time we signed a guy in FA and they played better for us than the previous team? Then look at how guys do when they leave here. 

Coaching is such an obvious issue  

main thing for me is that we lose enough to get BOB fired but win enough to stay in the hunt for FA and look appealing to coaching candidates 

also want to see our guys put up stats and stay healthy. So far we haven’t seen a major injury to a core guy unlike the last few years. 

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