Houston Texans fans had to deal with Bill O’Brien from 2014 through the first four games of the 2020 season.
While he did lead the team to the playoffs four times, the Texans could never advance beyond the Divisional Round.
O’Brien’s tenure was a wild one filled with too much drama and plenty of head-scratching decisions.
His name is trending today because of a new book written by Seth Wickersham focusing on the New England Patriots franchise.
The book is all about the relationship between Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and Robert Kraft.
But a specific point about O’Brien has to have Texans fans coming up with plenty of theories about why his time in Houston went so bad.
These are some damning passages on Bill O’Brien. No one in their right mind should ever want to make him a head coach again #Texans backing BOB over Rick Smith was dumb then, worse now https://t.co/aoGSCIpYj2 pic.twitter.com/T8OkmL8fVN
— Patrick Creighton (@PCreighton1) September 29, 2021
The bombshell here is that there was a time when Brady and others were planning for or hoping for life after Belichick.
O’Brien was floated as an option to return as the head coach, and somehow he heard this plan.
His plan was ultimately foiled when the Texans actually promoted him to being the head coach and the GM after moving on from former GM Rick Smith.
So basically we have a situation where O’Brien was doing things to get fired, only to be promoted.
Fans in Houston may have suspected this all along.
A Bizarre Tenure
There is no reason why O’Brien should have lasted so long in Houston.
So Bill O’Brien was trying to get himself fired? That would actually explain a lot.
— Alex Barth (@RealAlexBarth) September 29, 2021
The saving grace for him was the fact his team was winning, perhaps in spite of him.
The move that may have ultimately doomed him was trading DeAndre Hopkins to the Arizona Cardinals for David Johnson and a few draft picks.
It was a slap in the face to Hopkins and the entire Texans team, making it clear winning may not be the top priority.
In hindsight, the idea of O’Brien sabotaging his own teams makes sense.
However, it is incredibly immature and childish if this is indeed the case.
While he did make this comment that appears in the book, simply being inept may be a bigger culprit than anything else.
But the fact this news is out there will put a mark on O’Brien’s name.
The former Texans head coach is now the offensive coordinator at Alabama under Nick Saban.
That program seems to be a fallback for plenty of troubled coaches, and O’Brien is no exception.
One thing that remains clear is that no matter what he does with the Crimson Tide, a return to the Patriots is out of the question.
He may not even want the job now that Brady is gone, however, his reputation is not exactly helped by this surfaced quote.
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