Alan Truex: Texans unprepared, undisciplined under O’Brien

This was supposed to be the breakthrough season for Bill O’Brien and his Houston Texans.  This is year 5 of his term, which is a long time when your won-lost record is 31-35.  O’Brien survived four years of mediocrity on grounds that in only six games did he have an accredited quarterback, Deshaun Watson.

So here we are in 2018 and in the eight games with the championship-tested Watson as his quarterback, OB is a not OK 3-5.  It really doesn’t seem to matter whether he has a talented quarterback or not, he isn’t going to be a playoffs-caliber coach.  

In the NFL even the best teams must win some close games.  The Texans have already lost two of them.  And both can be blamed on blunders by O’Brien in crunch time.

In their season opener the Texans might have beaten the Super Bowling New England Patriots if O’Brien had called a timeout that would have revealed a non-catch by Rob Gronkowski.  Obie may live in infamy for saying he didn’t want to utilize a spare timeout because “It isn’t my job.”    

Then came Week 2, Sunday at Tennessee, when O’Brien at a key juncture was ranting at the ref and delivering a thoroughly inaccurate interpretation of the rules.

And that was not even the worst of it.  Not nearly the worst.

We got an early taste of what this game would be about.  The first score was by Tennessee, 66 yards on a fake-punt-pass from a safety, Kevin Bayard, to another safety, Dane Cruikshank, who’s a rookie drafted on the fifth round.  

There was almost nobody in Nissan Stadium who didn’t see that seconds before the snap, the Texans’ punt-blocking unit was ignoring Cruikshank on the flank.

“They did something we hadn’t planned for,” O’Brien said.  Apparently the Titans’ rookie head coach, Mike Vrabel, had noticed flawed game preparation while he was a member of O’Brien’s staff the two previous years. Vrabel told Bayard that if the Texans line up in punt-block formation, throw the ball.

“Don’t look at me, just call it,” Vrabel told him.  

The Titans’ center, Ben Jones, a former Texan, said Vrabel “coached his ass off all week.  He got us ready and he made those hard decisions when we needed to make them.”

The Texans made the sort of misalignment you would not expect of a Texas high school team.  Tyler Ervin, who was the designated punt returner, said, sheepishly, “I think we were kind of out of position.  It wasn’t too much of a quick snap.  We were just misaligned.”

He showed no urgency about correcting his position as Cruikshank raced down the field.  Erwin’s pursuit was halfhearted at most.  

The Texans did not look ready to play a team that was missing its quarterback and three best offensive tackles.  O’Brien had Deshaun Watson quarterbacking for him, while Vrabel had Blaine Gabbert, the ultimate mediocrity, and Vrabel’s team won 20-17.

Houston is furious.  The Chronicle’s John McClain wrote that it “might have been the most embarrassing regular-season loss in franchise history.”

The gaffes just kept coming, and they seemed jarringly definitive.  I give Jadeveon Clowney no chance of securing the long-term contract he wants after he drew a 15-yard penalty without even suiting up for the game.  

Clowney provoked the unsportsmanlike call for taunting a Titans player as he stood, ever so pointlessly, on the sidelines wearing street clothes.  That mistake resulted in Tennessee tying the game 17-17 with a much easier field goal than it had to be.

Of course the Texans had to save their dumbest play for last.  In what must have  been the first time in his Texans career that he’s had 16 seconds to pass the football, Watson managed to use 17 seconds and run out the clock.  There could not have been a more fitting way to end this game. 

Texans fans see a waste of All-Pro talent on defense:  Clowney being a clown, Whitney Mercilus invisible for the second week, the Honey Badger, Tyrann Matthieu, in hibernation.  

There was J.J. Watt showing he can still wreck an offensive front.  He made six tackles, two for losses.  The Texans won the ground battle, 148 yards to 100.   

But in pass-rushing the Texans did not have the advantage they expected.  Watt can no longer levitate like he did before back surgery.  No more J.J. Swat, from what we’ve seen so far.

It’s impossible to quantify how much of Houston’s problem is O’Brien.  McClain, a Hall of Fame football writer, graded the coach F- for his work in Nashville, and I don’t guess you can get lower than that.  

Up till now I’ve advocated for O’Brien, respecting, first of all, that he does have an Ivy League education and can’t be as stupid as he seems to be.  And I admire him for being able to soothe his team through difficult times and to concoct a serviceable running game even with mannequins on the offensive line.  I’ve always felt he got just about the most anyone could have done with the roster he had.

But as the years go on I’m becoming weary of O’Brien costing his team two or three wins by getting outcoached.  He was mentored by Bill Belichick, and yet he did not absorb the most obvious lesson:  Delegate.  Hire an offensive coordinator to call the plays.  Give yourself time to do what a head coach has to do: make challenges, call timeouts.  Yell at somebody when the punt-block unit leaves the gunner all alone.