O' Brien, Watson need to get their games in gear quickly
HOUSTON — There should have been a trusted voice in Bill O’Brien’s ear.
A name he respects. A staff member who could break through all the on-field noise to connect directly with a fifth-year coach about to make another critical in-game coaching mistake.
“Timeout! Timeout! Timeout!”
Of course, that word was never said.
And I’m honestly still not sure what to make of these post-defeat comments from new franchise quarterback Deshaun Watson.
“My energy was low,” he said Sunday, after only completing 50 percent of his passes for 176 yards and a 62.9 rating during another frustrating Texans loss at New England.
The only way — and I mean the only way — this works in 2018 is if O’Brien is a playoff-caliber coach through December and a healthy Watson has a Pro Bowl-type season.
Week 1 still felt like the preseason for both. And O’Brien has been calling the big shots far too long on Kirby Drive to spend his post-loss Mondays re-explaining everything that went wrong.
“I do realize that I can take a timeout,” said O’Brien, who is 2-3 in season openers. “That was my decision based on what I was told from upstairs and then what I saw from the sideline, and that’s how I decided to handle it.
“We’ve got to get back to basics, doing what we do well,” he added. “We have to improve, and the players have to improve.”
He could not be more right about that one.
If you say it was just Week 1 of a 16-game season or the Texans showed progress in the second half, I will remind you that it’s now Year Five of the O’Brien regime and the franchise has won 10 games only twice since playing its first contest in 2002.
“That was a game that, let’s be honest, could’ve gone south, real south,” O’Brien said. “It was 21-6 at one point.” Exactly.
More fun with numbers: The Texans are now 3-4 with Watson as their starting QB. Nothing comes easy in
the NFL.
To think Watson was simply going to click on the warm jets and burn — after a major injury and barely playing in the preseason — was to severely underrate how demanding pro foot- ball really is.
Cough up a fumble on your first offensive play of the game, and you almost always pay — especially on the road against the Patriots.
Allow Bill Belichick and Tom Brady to school you (again) on a trademarked touchdown drive to close out the first half — and fail to call a timeout that could lead to a critical replay — and you aren’t leaving New England with a win.
Overthrow open receivers, force a deep ball into double coverage for a deflating interception, fail to convert on an opponent’s miscues ...
You’ll be lucky to beat a bad team, and you surely aren’t pulling off a Week 1 road miracle against a five- time Super Bowl champion.
“It was terrible on my part. ... I just feel like you can put the ‘L’ on me, because I’ll be way better than what I showed,” said Watson, who struggled with the same accuracy issues that shadowed him during the draft process. “Just overthinking the little things. But we’ve just got to capitalize in the red zone, don’t turn the ball over, and just kind of continue to do what we do. Take it one play at a time, and just go from there.”
O’Brien often says the difference between weekly victory and defeat in the NFL is tiny — six to eight plays in all three phases of a game.
“Some of that’s luck, but a lot of that is your preparation . ... You made that call at the right time, and you han- dled that situation correctly, and you won,” he said before Week 1. “That’s where you have to try to improve all of the time. To be as prepared as you can possibly be for all of the things that can come up in a game.”
So why not call that time- out when three are burning in your pocket and a looming 21-6 halftime deficit is star- ing you in the face?
Watson said heading into 27-20 Patriots that he simply needed to be himself.
“Just be me and follow what the coaches are saying,”
he said. “Stay on course, stay in my own lane, and focus on this team.”
He rarely looked smooth and seldom appeared comfortable.
These Texans will be only as good as O’Brien and Watson are together. One of the primary reasons O’Brien received a four-year extension after a horrible 4-12 season was the organization’s belief that he could get the best out of his young, still-unproven QB.
Overreacting to the first game of a four-month season would be silly. But failing to recognize the Texans’ lingering problems — blending from year to year, even as names and numbers change — is much more damning.
O’Brien’s Texans must truly move forward at some point. If not, ownership is just wasting your time.
An offensive line that entered Week 1 as a major question mark will be without its starting right tackle for the remainder of this season. Cornerback Kevin Johnson, the No. 16 overall pick in 2015, is expected to miss several weeks and has struggled with injuries for three consecutive years.
The Texans need No. 2 wide receiver Will Fuller to be — and stay — on the field. Linebackers Jadeveon Clowney and Whitney Mercilus must do more, while Romeo Crennel’s defense can’t give up extended drives that lead to 27 points and almost 400 yards of offense.
But that’s all secondary to the coach and QB.