THE COACH IS RIGHT
Jerome Solomon agrees that Bill O’Brien needs to do a better job.
ATLANTA — Bill O’Brien often says he needs to coach better.
It is his crutch after his team loses, his way of taking the blame for a defeat and not publicly blaming his players.
He has been saying it since Penn State was surprised by Ohio University (not “The” Ohio State University) in his first game as a head coach.
So, of course, after his Texans were trounced Sunday — at one point looking up from a deeper hole than any the team had been in — O’Brien took up residence in Crutch City.
In the postgame news conference, he was short with his answers and succinct in his self-criticism, hardly allowing any room for discussion of his theory that he was mostly responsible for the 48-21 loss.
“Terrible coaching,” O’Brien said. “(I’ve) gotta do a better job, gotta figure out what I can do better to be a better head coach of this team. It starts with me. It’s a bad job of head coaching today.”
No need to argue with him about that. After all, O’Brien is the man in charge, and he and his Texans were terrible all right.
A record low
Despite the many public humiliations the Texans have suffered over the years, they had never looked up at the scoreboard and found themselves down by six touchdowns until the Falcons led 42-0 on Sunday.
“I didn’t get them ready to play today,” O’Brien said.
There is no arguing that — the Falcons scored four touchdowns before the Texans managed four first downs — but O’Brien made that statement as if the Texans’ not being ready to play was specific and unique to Sunday.
One would think the Georgia Dome debacle was the first time he had seen the Texans play. But I know he attends every game, because I have seen him yelling and screaming on the sideline at each one of them.
The Texans (1-3) have trailed at the half of all four games and have been outscored 74-19 in the first two quarters this season.
O’Brien, the former offensive coordinator of the high-powered New England Patriots and a respected quarterbacks coach, has a team that is dead last in the NFL in points scored in the first half.
Pick a team, any bad team, any bad team without a good quarterback or a bad team with a suspect offensive line or a bad team with a young, unproven offensive coordinator and … wait, you can’t pick the Texans.
Because the point is that any bad team you choose has done better at the start of games than the Texans, who have struggled to get going under rookie offensive coordinator George Godsey, the 36-year-old who never had been a coordinator before this season.
The Texans are a bad offensive team, but opponents are game-planning the Texans to death on both sides of the ball.
Kyle Shanahan, the Falcons’ offensive coordinator, put on a play-calling clinic as Atlanta shredded the Texans’ defense.
Meanwhile, the plodding Texans had no more than one first down on any of their first six possessions, which featured as many turnovers (three) as first downs.
This Smith has it
This would be a good time to mention that the Falcons’ defensive coordinator is Richard Smith, who was run out of Houston after the 2008 season because he couldn’t figure out how to field a quality defense.
He appears to have figured it out. At least against the confused Texans, who didn’t score until the Falcons put in their reserves in the fourth quarter.
“I have got to figure it out,” O’Brien said.
Like most teams, the Texans script plays to start games. They need better writing.
When games have turned into improvisational theater, with Godsey calling the plays, the Texans have looked disorganized.
Quarterback Ryan Mallett regularly throws the ball too hard, too soft or just plain crooked. On occasion, running backs run into offensive linemen and offensive linemen knock the ball away from running backs (that happened Sunday).
Perhaps O’Brien needs to step in and take over playcalling duties again.
We often hear from Texans brass about how complicated their schemes are. It matters not how complicated a scheme is when a team facing third-and-long runs plays designed to gain far less than the necessary yardage.
Questionable plays
Or turns the ball over and gives up TDs after almost every turnover.
That isn’t winning football. It is sloppy football. That isn’t complicated. Thus, the current state of the Texans isn’t at all complicated either.
Bill O’Brien is doing a bad job coaching a bad football team.
He said so himself.