Bill O'Brien Hot Seat Thread

[Apollo Stallion]

12 hours ago, EliteTexan80 said:

Sorry to miss the forest because of the trees on this one, but wasn't Bush drafted AFTER Katrina? The Saints were displaced the season before (when Aaron Brooks and Deuce McCallister were playing in OKC for home games).

I enjoy a good tinfoil hat theory as much as the next guy, but the timeline doesn't add up. Bush (and Drew Brees) were both Saints the following season.

No, move was very much in the works in the early 2000's after Houston got expansion instead of LA.   Owner Tom Benson was in a bitter fight with the state of Louisiana over Superdome renovations and a practice facility and basically gave them 4 years to do gut the dump or he was gone. By 2005, Benson had already called off lease negotiations for the Superdome and he was greenlighted to begin exploring relocation as well as possible sale.  Katrina initially gave him and the league the perfect excuse to finally get out of the financial wasteland that is Louisiana, but as their 05 season wore on and he began openly exploring opportunities in San Antonio and L.A. there was a massive backlash.  Remember what the post-Katrina landscape turned into - it was a benefit a week, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie treating it like it was a starving African nation, and pro-New Orleans nationwide sentiment akin to pro-New York post 9/11 sentiment.  In 2006, Benson was still in relocation mode and had announced his intentions to stay in S.A. and fired his EVP for continuing to advocate for staying in Louisiana but public and political pressure was mounting making abandoning New Orleans a pending PR nightmare.  Benson and the NFL finally agreed to return to New Orleans for the 06 season, but Benson was operating on a year to year lease & FEMA dollars and Tagliabue had appointed a 8 person committee to explore the future of football in New Orleans (Casserly was on the committee!).  Of course, nobody could have anticipated the tear-jerking return of football to New Orleans in late Sept 06 ("The Rebirth" Steve Gleason punt game) after which the NFL & Benson knew they had to recommit long-term. 

The transition of power from Casserly to Rick Smith occurred shortly after the draft (June) and if you don't think that was league orchestrated you are being naive.  Find me an example before or since where a GM was allowed to run a draft then was let go a month later despite the draft being his best ever (by some divine accident).  Find me an example of a Dir of Pro Personnel being in the draft room for one team in April then signing another teams draft class in June - if it wasn't planned, the Broncos would have sued the hell out of the Texans for collusion. I think you are forgetting just how coveted the Reggie Bush was as he spent a year captivating the country as the marquee talent/Heisman winner & the biggest lock to be taken #1 overall since Carson Palmer (different era for Rb value as well - 3 of the top 5 picks in 05 were Rb's) and how distant Mario Williams was from anyone's radar (Vince Young or Leinart were the #2/#3 prospects).      

[ET80]

1 minute ago, Apollo Stallion said:

No, move was very much in the works in the early 2000's after Houston got expansion instead of LA.   Owner Tom Benson was in a bitter fight with the state of Louisiana over Superdome renovations and a practice facility and basically gave them 4 years to do gut the dump or he was gone. By 2005, Benson had already called off lease negotiations for the Superdome and he was greenlighted to begin exploring relocation as well as possible sale.  Katrina initially gave him and the league the perfect excuse to finally get out of the financial wasteland that is Louisiana, but as their 05 season wore on and he began openly exploring opportunities in San Antonio and L.A. there was a massive backlash.  Remember what the post-Katrina landscape turned into - it was a benefit a week, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie treating it like it was a starving African nation, and pro-New Orleans nationwide sentiment akin to pro-New York post 9/11 sentiment.  In 2006, Benson was still in relocation mode and had announced his intentions to stay in S.A. and fired his EVP for continuing to advocate for staying in Louisiana but public and political pressure was mounting making abandoning New Orleans a pending PR nightmare.  Benson and the NFL finally agreed to return to New Orleans for the 06 season, but Benson was operating on a year to year lease & FEMA dollars and Tagliabue had appointed a 8 person committee to explore the future of football in New Orleans (Casserly was on the committee!).  Of course, nobody could have anticipated the tear-jerking return of football to New Orleans in late Sept 06 ("The Rebirth" Steve Gleason punt game) after which the NFL & Benson knew they had to recommit long-term. 

The transition of power from Casserly to Rick Smith occurred shortly after the draft (June) and if you don't think that was league orchestrated you are being naive.  Find me an example before or since where a GM was allowed to run a draft then was let go a month later despite the draft being his best ever (by some divine accident).  Find me an example of a Dir of Pro Personnel being in the draft room for one team in April then signing another teams draft class in June - if it wasn't planned, the Broncos would have sued the hell out of the Texans for collusion. I think you are forgetting just how coveted the Reggie Bush was as he spent a year captivating the country as the marquee talent/Heisman winner & the biggest lock to be taken #1 overall since Carson Palmer (different era for Rb value as well - 3 of the top 5 picks in 05 were Rb's) and how distant Mario Williams was from anyone's radar (Vince Young or Leinart were the #2/#3 prospects).      

Ok. Makes sense.

[Pastor Dillon]

3 hours ago, EliteTexan80 said:

It's already a dumpster fire here, do we need the drama that Brock brought to the table?

Brock being jettisoned is what freed up the cap room to sign Hopkins long term. I'd take that over a high 2nd any day.

We had the room to resign Hopkins, we just wouldn't have extended the other guys. 

[Apollo Stallion]

ugh - my stream went down - saw watson scored on a 49 yard run - describe pleez

[amazingandre]

1 hour ago, Apollo Stallion said:

ugh - my stream went down - saw watson scored on a 49 yard run - describe pleez

Incredible. 

 

And why don't you have DTV? Don't be cheap

[Pastor Dillon]

Whoever gets hired next is gonna get a solid QB in Watson 

[Apollo Stallion]

1 hour ago, amazingandre said:

Incredible. 

 

And why don't you have DTV? Don't be cheap

Yep, have gone from paying for 4 season tickets as a fallback for weeks where I didn't get a media pass or luxury box invite to sad sack frustrated cord cutter trying to figure out why NFL Network isn't on my Sling package, Amazon Prime, or Hulu Live. I blame Charlie Casserly.  Was afraid I was going to have to be the guy who shows up at the sports bar at halftime alone - or worse still have my kids help me fix something on an electronic device.  Fortunately, my manhood was saved with a simple reboot. 

[UKTexans]

Wrong thread. #BOBout

[amazingandre]

9 hours ago, Apollo Stallion said:

Yep, have gone from paying for 4 season tickets as a fallback for weeks where I didn't get a media pass or luxury box invite to sad sack frustrated cord cutter trying to figure out why NFL Network isn't on my Sling package, Amazon Prime, or Hulu Live. I blame Charlie Casserly.  Was afraid I was going to have to be the guy who shows up at the sports bar at halftime alone - or worse still have my kids help me fix something on an electronic device.  Fortunately, my manhood was saved with a simple reboot. 

Get Playstation Vue. You don't need playstation, you can use Amazon fire box. That has espn, nfl network etc. 

[shep0507]

6 hours ago, amazingandre said:

Get Playstation Vue. You don't need playstation, you can use Amazon fire box. That has espn, nfl network etc. 

Yeah, I have Vue also and I'm pretty happy. I tried Sling... hated it. I haven't tried Hulu's live tv service or DirecTv Now yet, but they have 7 day trials, so at some point I'll probably try them out. AT&T and DirecTVNow are seriously missing the boat by not offering Sunday ticket as an upgrade, because I'd probably use that during the season and PSV the rest of the year. Or even better, just sell it to anyone that wants it, they'd make so much more than being bullheaded about it because they'd rather you be a full customer.

[Apollo Stallion]

"I thought K-Jack played one of the best games he's had since I've been here," Texans coach Bill O'Brien said. "He did a lot of different things. He blitzed off the edge, got a sack, caused a fumble, had several tackles. Just a very smart player and he's a very valuable player to our team because he can do so many different things, and he played really well."  Bill O'Brien

This is a terrifying assessment of a CORNERBACK, paid to cover WRs that personally gave up 90% of the passing yards we gave up and could have easily given up 100 more yards and 2 TDs if Dalton could hit the side of a barn.  Sure, he made some plays on the QB and RB, but he CAN'T do the PRIMARY job he is paid to do and most certainly is NOT a smart CB as in 8 years he still can't turn his head to avoid a PI and gets absolutely destroyed by freshman level fake moves from practice squad fodder like Alex Erickson and a gaggle of garbage WRs (Seyi Ajirotutu anyone?) who have abused him his entire career.

This is the same BoB that keeps running XSF out there because he occasionally makes some good blocks in the running game as if this makes up for being the single most incompetent pass protector in the NFL (btw- he's so fat and out of shape this season he's not even a good run blocker anymore).  Same guy who falls in love with how a guy throws passes while wearing the red caution penny in training camp, still having not figured out that pocket awareness and ability to maintain fundamental throwing motion under pressure is what makes a QB successful vs. a camp arm. 

I'm pretty confident at this point that while Bill O'Brien is a smart man in life, he simply doesn't understand that at the NFL-level certain deficiencies negate any positive attributes they bring.  CB who can't cover, LG who can't pass protect, QB with no pocket presence - doesn't matter if they are big hitters, run blockers, or a great arm, the deficiencies are deal killers.  This is not baseball where you are ok if your slugger strikes out 4 times and hits a home run on the 5th one.   Strikeouts in football cost you touchdowns, get your QB killed, or kill/extend drives and most players will never get enough "at bats" to make up for mistakes that cost points. This is especially true given Bill O'Brien's hyper conservative offensive philosophy that magnifies mistakes because we have almost no ability to play from behind.

 

 

[Apollo Stallion]

O'Brien deserves every ounce of grief he gets for running Miller into a pile and giving Brady 2 minutes to dismantle this secondary, but he has about 10 seconds to make decisions like this. Rick Smith had an entire offseason(s) to make decisions directly responsible for both losses so far:

• Dismantle a top flight secondary and intentionally return to a strategy trusting his drafting of Kareem Jackson and Kevin Johnson which has us with street free agent Davis covering the Pats #1 receiver 3 days after he was watching games on the couch
• Get by with street FA scraps and special teamers at strong safety. Expect FS Hal to be playmaking leader vs. marginal starter/depth component.
• Ignore WR and trust Fuller/Miller/Strong based on draft position not performance. 
• Ignore G based upon draft reach (XSF) and bloated free agent salary (Allen) not perfomance.
• Draft a raw small school project that won't contribute this season then entrust RT in a struggling run based offense to scrub Breno Giacomini
• Play hardball with only rock solid OL we've ever drafted with absolutely no contingency plan other than guy (Clark) that failed horribly the year before when we had no contingency for marginal Derek Newton.
• Have no ability to fix the gaping holes referenced above because next years 1st and 2nd round picks had to be burned to try to recover from one of the 3 worst FA signings in history with 4 year / $72 million deal for QB so bad the two teams defined by their inability to find a QB worth starting an entire season would rather take $9 million & $15 million cap hits than have him on their rosters.

I have no problem with people pointing out the inadequacies and mistakes O'Brien adds to his suspect resume every week, but just because Rick Smith is up there safe in luxury next to the billionaire, let there be no doubt, HE is the one most directly responsible for the mistakes that have compounded year after year during his reign and should be the first one held accountable this offseason. In my eyes, 52 minutes in the Pats game showed me there is a glimmer of hope that O'Brien can again overcome ridiculous roster obstacles to get this team to mediocrity which in our division means a chance at a playoff birth.  Doesn't mean he shouldn't be shown the door at the end of the season too, but it would be practically impossible for him to make enough bad decisions in games this year to even come close to what Rick did before we even stepped on the field.   

[ET80]

Seat got colder today. That offense was scary. 

[Apollo Stallion]

Unfortunately we don't get to carry any of the 57 into next week.  Had Chiefs game as a "pick 'em" heading into the season.  Pulling it out would go a long way to making up for the Jags loss and put us back on schedule, but we should not underestimate the task.  Gotta have the Chiefs as the #1 team in the NFL so far and Vrabel needs to just start sleeping in the office to figure out what to do about Hill, Hunt, and Kelce.    Browns should be cake the next week, but going to Seattle after the bye profiles as a loss. I definitely like our chances vs. the run oriented teams much better than pass oriented but winning in Seattle is a tall order.  Rams roadie is looking harder than anticipated, but Ravens looking easier.  Colts are the new Jags.

Regardless, O'Brien's transformation of the offense the past two weeks w/Watson and overcoming this o-line restores the benefit of the doubt of what he can do with competent QB play.  You can see him asserting himself in ditching Strong and benching Braxton Miller for a guy who can execute like Ellington.  He even got S. Anderson past the 25 yard barrier this week!  Hopefully, Mancz is healthy next week so he can get XSF off our football field. Get Brown & Fido back in here after the bye and this offense should be rock solid for the 2nd half. 

[Pastor Dillon]

I will say this was the best play calling we've ever had in a game. 

Still we need to get to 4-2 at the bye and I'll say his seat is cool. A loss to the Chiefs puts the heat back on