From the playoff collapse in Kansas City to a head-scratching offseason to the team’s first 0-4 start since 2008, the Houston Texans have failed on all fronts in 2020.
The consequences for those failures came Monday, when the Texans fired head coach and general manager Bill O’Brien – a move that Zach Gelb saw coming from a mile away.
“You’re supposed to take a step or two forward, not two giant steps backwards – and that is what the Texans have done because they gave Bill O’Brien so much power,” Gelb said on The Zach Gelb Show. “[Texans owner] Cal McNair, until today, didn’t step in and say, ‘Bill, you’re not doing this any longer.’”
O’Brien arrived in Houston in 2014. He led the franchise to AFC South titles in four of the last five seasons but went 2-4 in the playoffs, never advancing past the divisional round. He was also responsible for the talent exodus in Houston.
“When he makes a significant move like trading DeAndre Hopkins, you better have got something significant back – and he didn’t get nearly enough back,” Gelb said. “How Cal McNair allowed that to happen, shame on him. Today he finally said, ‘Enough is enough, we got to get this guy out of the organization if he’s fighting with prominent players and has already annoyed most of the locker room and made this team worse.’”
O’Brien was harshly criticized for both the playoff collapse in Kansas City and the puzzling moves he made this offseason. Ultimately, Gelb believes O’Brien let his ego get in the way.
“I said this at the time, and I got some heat from it in the Houston area,” Gelb said. “Bill O’Brien did not have a desire to get this team better this offseason. He didn’t have a desire to win a Lombardi. He let his ego get in the way, and he made foolish decisions – and I mean foolish decisions that made this team worse. People at the time [said], ‘Zach, how can you say someone doesn’t have a desire to win?’ Everyone wants to win, but you have to show me you want to win.
“That organization, this offseason showed me that the coaching staff, management, the owner didn’t care about getting this team closer to a Lombardi,” Gelb continued. “They basically saw the Lombardi and said, ‘Let’s social-distance from the Lombardi.’ That’s what they did this offseason, and today it finally comes to a close – but it comes to a close with Bill O’Brien going and Bill O’Brien leaving this team in a bad situation.”
The Texans did sign franchise quarterback Deshaun Watson to an extension in September, but they did so after trading his top receiver – and perhaps the top receiver in the game.
“You have a quarterback, [but] what else do you got?” Gelb asked. “You can have a franchise quarterback; if you don’t surround him with the right pieces, you’re not going to see the full potential of that franchise quarterback.”