Should Texans fire Bill O'Brien? Houston coach defends himself after disastrous playoff loss

Tadd Haislop

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Should Texans fire Bill O'Brien? Houston coach defends himself after disastrous playoff loss image

Given the state of the franchise, with the Texans proceeding without a general manager and allowing Bill O'Brien to serve as part of a council that determines the team's roster construction, the head coach is unlikely to be fired after Houston's divisional playoff collapse in Kansas City on Sunday. That doesn't mean O'Brien is off the hook for what happened against the Chiefs.

O'Brien, 50, has three years remaining on his contract. In his six seasons with Houston, the team has suffered its share of frustrating postseason defeats, with this year's arguably hurting most considering the Texans would have hosted the AFC title game with a win, and because they blew a 24-0 lead against the Chiefs to lose 51-31.

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The underwhelming results, especially with a quarterback like Deshaun Watson who proved in the wild-card round he is capable of lifting the team to playoff wins, are leading Texans fans to wonder whether the team has already reached its ceiling with O'Brien. Why should Houston fans believe it’s going to get better?

The coach faced that exact question during his media conference after the Chiefs game.

"I feel like we’re moving in the right direction," O'Brien answered. "I think we did a lot of good things this year. Not enough, obviously. Feel good about where we’re headed."

To O'Brien's credit, the Texans have won the AFC South in four of his six seasons on the job, including this year's division title that earned them the No. 4 seed in the playoffs. He has just one losing season on his resume, a 4-12 slide in 2017 when Watson's rookie year was cut short due to a knee injury.

Houston did lose one more game in 2019 than it did the year prior, but it advanced a round deeper in the playoffs.

O'Brien took heat Sunday for a couple play calls, one his decision to kick a field goal on a fourth-and-1 while up 21-0 early in the second quarter, and the other a failed fake punt on the next drive that allowed the Chiefs to keep closing the gap on the scoreboard.

He defended those calls in the same, matter-of-fact tone in which he defended his own job.

On the field goal: "I was thinking about challenging the spot, because I felt like I had a first down. By the time I got to fourth down, I just decided to kick the field goal."

On the fake punt: "We felt like we had a look, and it just didn’t work."

Added Chiefs coach Andy Reid on that call, via Pro Football Talk: "I thought Bill did a nice job with that. That was an opportune time to call that. People are going to be upset, but from a coaching standpoint, it was an inch away. That wasn't a bad call at all there."

MORE: Complete NFL playoff schedule, results

Of course, the Texans were only able to build such a massive early lead Sunday because of the avalanche of mistakes that plagued the Chiefs. A blown coverage allowed Houston's first touchdown. A blocked punt led to the next. Tyreek Hill muffed a punt. Kansas City receivers dropped four Patrick Mahomes passes in the first quarter alone.

Then the better team got it together, and before the Texans could blink, the Chiefs had scored 41 unanswered points before Houston found the end zone again late in the third.

Simply put: O'Brien's team was heavily outmatched in Kansas City. This shouldn't be considered a collapse; just a blowout loss to a team that features the defending NFL MVP.

That won't matter to O'Brien's critics, who understandably want more. The Texans, after all, have a pretty damn good QB themselves.

Tadd Haislop

Tadd Haislop is the Associate NFL Editor at SportingNews.com.