Bill O'Brien fired from the Texans

Don't let the door hit ya, BOB:

The Houston Texans have started the 2020 regular season with four straight losses. They are 0-4. In the history of the NFL, there has been exactly ONE franchise to start a season 0-4 and go on to make the playoffs. (In case you get into bar trivia duels, that one team was the 1992 San Diego Chargers, led by the immortal Stan Humphries at quarterback!)

This Texans team doesn't look remotely ready to win a football game, let alone win the nine or ten games that would be required to make the NFL's postseason. Perhaps the most frustrating and infuriating part of the Texans' failure this season is that head coach Bill O'Brien was supposed to be an offensive expert (despite six recent seasons of Texans football that display the contrary), and the offense flat out stinks.

Players look confused, Deshaun Watson looks neutered, and in the end, the most productive output through four games was the 23 points they scored on Sunday against Minnesota. By Monday afternoon, Texans owner Cal McNair had seen enough, and he decided to move on from Bill O'Brien, firing the seventh year head coach and naming Romeo Crennel as interim head coach for the remainder of the season.

While O'Brien amassed a (barely) winning 52-48 record and notched four AFC South division titles as head coach of the Texans, his playoff record was a meager 2-4, and his most recent postseason performance was an epic 24-point chokejob against Kansas City. Moreover, as GM he made some truly bizarre personnel moves, such as trading fan favorite and all-pro wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to Arizona for essentially nothing in return. In fact, O'Brien's ineptitude has pretty much screwed the Texans for years to come, as The Guardian's Oliver Connolly explains: 

It is a testament to the job that Bill O’Brien did with the Texans that the firing of a head coach/general manager who led his franchise to four division titles, only one losing record, and back-to-back double-digit win seasons was overdue.

As a reminder of the state of play when O’Brien was fired on Monday:

-- The Texans have the NFL’s highest payroll this year at $248m.

-- They are projected to be $6m over the salary cap this offseason.

-- Over the past 12 months, they have traded away Jadeveon Clowney and DeAndre Hopkins, two bonafide All-Pros, for a bag of nothing.

-- They do not have a first- or second-round pick in the next draft because of a trade that brought Laremy Tunsil from the Dolphins.

-- They have only four picks in the 2021 draft.

-- They are 0-4.

-- FiveThirtyEight projects them to finish the season with a 4-12 record, and gives them a 2% chance of making the playoffs.

It is about as grim a outlook as any team in the league. O’Brien leaves the team devoid of talent – or the assets to get any in the immediate future.

Indeed, the only question about Bill O'Brien's firing is why it occurred when it did. It would have made more sense to have given him the boot following last January's meltdown against Kansas City, when O'Brien proved beyond a doubt that - his four division titles in the weak AFC South notwithstanding - the AFC Divisional round was the furthest he would ever be able to take the team. 

Instead, the McNair family stuck with him, formally appointed him GM, and allowed him to make the boneheaded Hopkins trade, only to finally realize their mistake four games into the 2020 season. Now, the McNairs are stuck with open general manager and head coaching positions few people are going to want to fill, given the mess the franchise now finds itself in. ESPN's Bill Barnwell explains:

In the end, there was nobody left for O'Brien to use as an excuse, no power to grab and no promotion to achieve. The only person more powerful than O'Brien in the organization, McNair, is the one who made the decision to cut ties with O'Brien and his plan for the team after a month of bad football. I can understand why McNair made his decision, but it seems impossible to separate what O'Brien has done from the opportunity McNair gave him to make those decisions. McNair can right the ship and turn things around if the Texans make the right hires for O'Brien's old positions this offseason, but neither job looks particularly appealing. McNair also has proved he's not up to his job over the past two years, but as O'Brien was reminded Monday, you can't fire an owner.

Apparently, a recent altercation between O'Brien and J.J. Watt in practice may have been the final straw.  I feel badly for J.J. and think the Texans should trade him to a team where he has a chance to win the ring he so deserves. 

The Texans, meanwhile, are going to be a disaster for the next several years to come.