Is Bill O'Brien the worst coach in the league?

[Joe_is_the_best]

18 hours ago, ET80 said:

No, but you caviated it by saying Super Bowl winning HC Pete Carroll should be fired as well for one play.

If Bill O'Brien was being lambasted over one play, I'd be the first to defend him. Those who are criticizing him know that it's not just one play that draws all of this ire.

Here - I'm a Texans fan, so I'm clearly bias on the subject (given the events of yesterday). Let's ask a few non-Texans fans:

@SkippyX, @Joe_is_the_best and @Boltstrikes live in Houston, IIRC. Fans of the Eagles, Broncos and Chargers, I believe. Let's get their takes, guys who have no dog in the fight.

In a vacuum, obviously it would be silly to fire a coach for one bad call, but this isn't just 1 play and this ain't BoB's first rodeo. When evaluating a coach, context matters. The sheer amount of talent at his disposal, the utter incompetence of their division & the resources available give that context. If you give BoB decent ingredients, he can beat a couple good teams per year, make the playoffs, then get annihilated. Ok you say, let's add an elite QB. If there's no improvement, Houston you have a problem. I'm not into comparisons. What I can say is that he is really bad for this team & the Texans are wasting Derrick Deshaun Watson's talent.

[rocky_rams]

4 hours ago, scar988 said:

Dan Quinn can win in the playoffs, though.

Yes with a top 3 most talented team in the league 

[Hukos]

18 minutes ago, rocky_rams said:

Yes with a top 3 most talented team in the league 

I disagree with that strongly. That 2016 season was due to elite coaching by Kyle Shanahan. That roster was below average and it showed in subsequent years. However, Quinn has done nothing to improve the roster since then and he's got to take accountability for that, since he has roster control. The Super Bowl run was a bunch of smoke and mirrors - not talent. The 2016 Falcons were probably about... 20th in the NFL with regards to talent? We've had a good QB, some great WRs and not much else. Great teams have pieces everywhere, the Falcons just have them at the most obvious positions.

I think Quinn needs to be fired because he has his hands into roster control and the Falcons have serious issues developing players on defense, but I don't see where the Falcons are supposedly so talented. They're like, average level talent in the NFL. They're no more talented than the Jacksonville Jaguars are - the Falcons just concentrate their talent into offense. They probably have the least talented defense in the NFL. However, a lot of those players who aren't talented are also guys Quinn personally handpicked himself, so he's got to take the sword for that one. Desmond Trufant seriously regressing under Quinn should be enough of a red flag.

So ultimately I agree with the end-point conclusion (Dan needs to be fired) but disagree with the details.

Edited January 14, 2020 by Hukos

[ET80]

Sean Pendergast is probably my favorite local sports media guy - he wrote up this article for the Houston Press, and it pretty much encapsulates the current position with BoB:

https://www.houstonpress.com/news/the-texans-bamboozled-fans-all-season-long-under-bill-obrien-11421555?fbclid=IwAR0feWWyxRwTcSlmk8ZQHmzraqh532eJZmYUIiH55BbRyi1GavWrcwXV9vU

[SkippyX]

14 hours ago, LeotheLion said:

To people that actually think BoB is the worst coach in football, how would an good coach improve the team in terms of wins/postseason success? Say someone like Zimmer or a Pederson. I don't think the Texans have an overly talented roster. I'd probably rank it somewhere 7-10. To me if you go from worst to good you'd be expecting at least 2-3 extra wins a year and I don't think this team has that type of roster. Are people expecting they'd be like the last 2 Chiefs years? 

This is a broad strokes view with absolutely no look at individual game performance.

They lost the bye last year by 1 game

• They lost in Tennessee 20-17
• Tennessee scored 7 because the punt team did not cover a gunner.
• A Titans FG drive was aided by JD Clowney yelling at a Titan in street clothes from the sideline for a 15 yard penalty.
• Any other coach in the NFL wins that game with those players.

When that offense has an improved line, a very good rusher in Hyde and a solid 3rd down back in Johnson also has a top 3 WR in Hopkins...

They perform like the Eagles playing practice squad guys when only Will Fuller is out of the lineup.

 

There are at least 10 games like this game (including BOTH playoff games this year)

He prepared his team at home vs Denver in Lock's 2nd career start to fall behind 38-3. Is your hot take that no other coach could do better than that?

He is an awful coach who hurts his team week after week.

 

Osweiler was 5-2 in Denver and 8-6 in Houston.

Going 8-6 with Osweiler and winning a wildcard match up with Connor Cook is is not an accomplishment.

• Are you going to tell us that Osweiler is worse than Connor Cook?

The offense was ranked 28/29 and the D carried them ranked 11/1

Osweiler could not even find DeAndre Hopkins. See if you can pick out the Osweiler year for DeAndre:

• 76  1210   6
• 111  1521 11
• 78   954    4
• 96  1378  13
• 115  1572  11
• 104  1165    7

Anyone who gives BOB any credit for the Osweiler year did not bother to look at the details.

BOB takes an 11 to 12 win talent team every year and wins 9 or 10 games with that team.

Every team in the NFC South except the Texans have played in an AFCCG while BOB has been here.

BOB has been humiliated in every playoff game that did not feature a bad QB in his only career NFL start on the other team.

Yes, he was embarrassed vs Buffalo in the first half and at the end of regulation.

His talented players saved him in OT on a play that was designed to have 2 Bills run free to sack Watson.

 

Edited January 14, 2020 by SkippyX

[Hunter2_1]

Probably not the worst, but slowest to process information? Maybe. 

[SkippyX]

Tom Savage had 92 career NFL passes without a TD pass with DeAndre Hopkins on his team heading into 2017.

BOB watched a training camp and preseason of Savage and Watson and named Savage the starter.

The 4-12 season in 2017 was mostly about BOB evaluating Savage over 3 years and mistakenly thinking he was an NFL QB.

He was not stuck with Savage in 2017. He chose him and he chose to keep him through 3 training camps and preseasons.

[LeotheLion]

4 minutes ago, SkippyX said:

BOB takes an 11 to 12 win talent team every year and wins 9 or 10 games with that team.

So 1-3 wins? I can see this. My overall point is that I don't think it's an overly talented roster that should be expected to have SB or bust aspirations. Though you'd expect a good coach to over-perform some years which he certainly hasn't done with Deshaun.

[SkippyX]

Just now, LeotheLion said:

So 1-3 wins? I can see this. My overall point is that I don't think it's an overly talented roster that should be expected to have SB or bust aspirations. Though you'd expect a good coach to over-perform some years which he certainly hasn't done with Deshaun.

1 to 3 wins means a couple byes over the last 4 years.

The Bye is how you get to the Super Bowl (with some luck and some clutch play)

• Brady/BB get the bye all the time because both are excellent.
• Watson/BOB don't ever get it because one of them is a fraud.

[LeotheLion]

8 minutes ago, SkippyX said:

1 to 3 wins means a couple byes over the last 4 years.

The Bye is how you get to the Super Bowl (with some luck and some clutch play)

• Brady/BB get the bye all the time because both are excellent.
• Watson/BOB don't ever get it because one of them is a fraud.

True. I just don't ever think they'd have had a team that had SB talent. Even if you gave them a bye with a better coach none of the 2014-2016 teams would have been good enough. This year would be the closest year to it and I think you'd have to have a BOB/Reid coaching upgrade to get a SB victory. And even if you put Reid on the Texans I don't think the team is better than the current Chiefs team. 

I'd be in the fire BOB camp, I just don't think he is close to the worst. Even if you exclude guys that only have 1 year of experience he is still much more accomplished than some of the other coaches around the league. 

[BayRaider]

Had a chance to rewatch the game. 
 

- Worst time management called game in playoff history. 
 

- Worst disguised blitzes in a playoff game in NFL history by Romeo. Even I read almost all of them. It was quite sad and pathetic. 
 

Titans will not make either of these mistakes. 
 

This was more of a Texan coaching failure than impressive performance by the Chiefs if I had to pick one of the two. Although still a brilliant performance by Mahomes, definitely give him his due. He’s stunning. 

[ET80]

1 hour ago, BayRaider said:

Worst time management called game in playoff history

It's one of the worst in BoB's tenure. Not THE worst; Seattle or New England in 2016 (Watson's rookie season) probably takes the cake.

That should tell you something. It's why I'm not too shocked at how bad BoB was on Sunday.

1 hour ago, BayRaider said:

Worst disguised blitzes in a playoff game in NFL history by Romeo. Even I read almost all of them. It was quite sad and pathetic. 

Romeo is still living in 1996. His coverages and his schemes are built for that sort of football, it's why he's using oversized guys in the front seven who have no explosive get-off. You're not able to generate any sort of pressure outside of Watt because the entire DL rotation is made up of run stoppers. It might have worked back when Romeo whipped out Vince Wilfork and Ron Brace in the early 00s, but the game has evolved exponentially since then.

1 hour ago, BayRaider said:

This was more of a Texan coaching failure than impressive performance by the Chiefs if I had to pick one of the two.

Credit where credit is due, any team that can hang up 34 unanswered after going down 24-0 is absolutely a testament to not losing your cool and sticking to your game plan; The Ravens went away from their game, and it showed when the game was over. The Chiefs did not buckle in the least when the Texans threw their best shot early. 

This being said... it's not hard to claw back when the Texans went into absolute brain dead gameplanning. Texans could have been up 84-0, and KC would have stormed back to at least tie it by halftime.