THIRD TIME THE CHARM?
It has been 371 days since Bill O’Brien first lost to Kansas City.
If the Texans fall to the Andy Reid-Alex Smith Chiefs on Sunday, it will be the third time in a little more than a year. That can’t happen. O’Brien must be better than that. The same for his Texans, who showed off the same split personality in Week 1 that has hindered this team since Gary Kubiak gave way to O’Brien.
Good enough to beat the bad Bears but never close to dominant.
Moments when a new-look crew thrilled and a record Texans crowd made NRG Stadium electric. Three-plus quarters of Chicago reminding us that taking the Texans’ weekly pulse could be a tricky proposition in 2016.
Overreacting to anything after one NFL game is preposterous. Rex Ryan at least waited until two Buffalo defeats before the Bills fired the wrong coordinator.
But I can say what follows without hesitation. And if you know these Texans as well as I think you do, you’ll agree with every word.
Year Three barometer
Chiefs-Texans III is a huge swing game for O’Brien in Year Three.
If the Texans are going to do anything big in 2016, they’ll find a way to prevent 0-3 against Reid and Smith in a little more than a year.
If O’Brien’s team doesn’t want to be staring at a potential 1-2 start following a trip four days from now to visit Jimmy Garoppolo’s Patriots in New England, it’ll make sure that the promise of 1-0 isn’t erased at home one week later.
“I really don’t think it’s really in your best interest to get behind in any of these games. It’s hard to dig yourself out of a hole,” said O’Brien, whose Texans trailed by a combined 57-6 in their last two losses to the Chiefs’ Super Bowl-winning juggernaut**.
That last part received two asterisks for a reason.
During Brian Hoyer’s last stand — picture George Armstrong Custer, but with shorter hair and five infuriating turnovers — the Texans were scalped 30-0 and never scored a point.
Kansas City’s NFL team also hasn’t won anything life-changing since 1970, so it’s not like Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have been the ones dragging the Texans down.
Kansas City’s own struggles
No discredit to the Chiefs. They’re good. Well-coached, two-sided with explosive special teams, and fronted by a quarterback who has 122 starts to Brock Osweiler’s eight and is much more dangerous than his inaccurate “gamemanager” name tag indicates.
But Kansas City also started 1-5 last season and trailed by 21 points at home last week to the cough-it-up San Diego Chargers.
Jamaal Charles should be absent Sunday. As smart as Reid is on the sideline, he has long struggled to keep time. And when you’re hosting a “good” enemy for the third time since Sept. 13, 2015, there’s no acceptable reason for dropping all three games in your own stadium.
Coach-to-coach level
O’Brien only knows Reid on a professional level.
“Just meeting him at the (NFL) owner’s meetings and things like that,” the Texans coach said.
If he’s 0-3 against the Chiefs by Sunday evening, the third-year leader will personally know Reid as well as he could ever want to.
“They are a really well-coached team. I have a lot of respect for him,” O’Brien said. “When you watch the way that they coach their team and the way that their team plays, it’s a really good football team.
“Also, Bob Sutton on the defensive side of the ball does a really good job. It’s going to be … really intense preparation.”
Most Texans refused to even peek at their nationally televised Week 3 “Thursday Night Football” challenge that’s four days away.
Focus on the present. Control what you can control. Etc., etc. Osweiler was different. Again sounding like a QB who gets it, the $72 million man basically said “bring it” when facing the Chiefs and Patriots in back-to-back, short-rest games was mentioned.
Needing a reason to be hopeful
The Texans could be a promising 2-1 or, my gosh, even a perfect 3-0 with the Teen Titans on the Week 4 calendar at NRG.
Or they could be 1-2 with this city questioning the worth of its football team for the fourth consecutive year. So can the Texans do it, Brock? Can you be better than a “game manager” — or at least not throw four picks and shatter our shocked souls?
Can O’Brien hold his own for once against the coach who has owned him?
Can we officially erase 30-0 Kansas City from our scarred minds and start imagining what it would be like if the Texans actually won a game in Belichick’s backyard?
“I love it,” Osweiler said. “It’s all about playing great competition.
“Those are the games that you really get excited about when you see them on the schedule.”
We’ve wanted to be excited about the Texans ever since they fell apart.
Beat the Chiefs, and we’ll start to feel something.
Take down Reid and Belichick, and then we’ll begin to believe.