TEXANS FIND THEMSELVES IN A JAM IN L.A.
Plenty of blame to go around for a team that should be better
LOS ANGELES — As a daylong haze settled over the old Coliseum, the light turned from blue to black and birds began circling the field. Then, one by one, the Texans publicly blamed themselves. It was all Bill O’Brien’s fault. It was all Tom Savage’s fault. It was everyone’s fault. The coach of a beat-up 3-6 team just kept beating himself up.
“I haven’t done a good job coaching this team this year,” said O’Brien, after the Rams won 33-7 in a second-half torchfest that became the latest personal insult in a season loaded with them.
A once-benched, now barely starting quarterback was even harder on himself.
“It’s on the quarterback,” said Savage, who was 18of-36 for 221 yards, committed four turnovers and has thrown away every chance the Texans have given him in 2017. You know what, Houston? They’re all right. The Texans should be better than this. Savage shouldn’t start again this season (except for the fact Rick Smith’s Texans have left themselves no other choice).
And what stands as the worst season of O’Brien’s four-year run isn’t falling apart just because of injuries and the sudden loss of Deshaun Watson.
Two questions before we slice into a game the Texans should have been leading at halftime, and a contest in which O’Brien got outcoached once again.
What was Bob McNair thinking as he departed darkening Memorial Coliseum?
What do the Texans have left to play for in 2017?
If the second half Sunday was evidence of what’s left in their collective heart, the obvious answer is not much.
The Texans totaled 95 yards in the final two horrendous quarters, and about half of that was in their now-classic garbage time.
They scored one touchdown in 48 minutes, while a depleted squad that has dropped four of its last five contests — only beating the winless Cleveland Browns — has lost every way possible this season: late and close, absolute heartbreaker, total blowout. It’s also only Week 10, which leaves us wondering where these Texans go from here and what their true motivation is until 2018 arrives.
“If you just walked in that locker room right now and you asked the guys, I can promise you that no one feels that way — that it’s going to go south,” Savage said. Good answer. I would have immediately believed that in 2014-16, when O’Brien’s teams fought off death over and over again.
But it doesn’t appear the AFC South is going to bail them out in 2017 (even though Andrew Luck is reportedly hanging out in Europe). The Jacksonville Jaguars and Tennessee Titans are both 6-3, and they’re winning exactly the type of games these Texans keep giving away.
“We just got to go back and correct the mistakes,” O’Brien said. “We’ve got a lot of football left. I’ve got to coach better.”
There he goes again.
What’s O’Brien’s end game?
Fiery, gritty, gutsy O’Brien blamed himself almost 10 times in his post-defeat personal flogging.
“I’ve got to figure it out. I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“This team plays for each other. They don’t play for me.”
“I just didn’t do a good enough job.”
I’ve spent the last 3½ seasons listening to O’Brien bruise his public image almost each time the Texans fall short (or just get embarrassed). But Sunday was on a deeper, harder level as the fourth-year coach reached the lowest point of his career.
With all the constant selfcriticism, what is O’Brien trying to tell us?
That, if he was the owner, he’d move on and find someone new in 2018?
That he hit an annual 9-7 ceiling as Texans coach and doesn’t know how to break through?
I’ve still got a big TBD on the latter. But the former? O’Brien is way too smart to believe that.
He will have Watson — one of the most talented young names in the league — back next season, which also marks the coach’s final year under contract.
But the bland “It’s on me” was also supposed to end in 2013, when the Texans went an NFL-worst 2-14 and Gary Kubiak (who went on to coach Denver to a Super Bowl trophy) was coldly fired.
Just 3½ years later, O’Brien is again trying to make us believe this is all on him. It’s not. Every NFL team suffers major injuries; the Texans went 9-7 with a division title and playoff win last season despite living without J.J. Watt. But Smith’s roster hasn’t been deep enough to withstand the setbacks in 2017, and longstanding problem areas (offensive line, secondary) have become a revolving door of castoffs and discarded names.
What’s a team to do?
The organization — owner, general manager, coach — also stood behind Savage all offseason, then remained committed to their benched Week 1 starter after Watson went down.
Colin Kaepernick? Way too controversial and dramatic for Kirby Drive.
T.J. Yates? Solid enough to get pulled off the couch again. But apparently not good enough to play, even when the Texans are getting blown out in a half-filled stadium in super-distracted L.A.
Guess who did win Sunday? Old friends Case Keenum and Ryan Fitzpatrick. And Wade Phillips.
When the stadium lights were all that was left at the Coliseum, the remade Rams were 7-2 with a first-year coach who looks smarter and smarter as each week unfolds.
Four seasons into his stay in Houston, O’Brien can’t stop telling us that it’s all his fault — and now his players are blaming themselves, too.
The Texans should be better than this.
But they are 3-6 and waiting for 2018 to begin, just like you.