BRIAN T. SMITH
Despite early season difficulties, Bill O’Brien showed his players nothing but positivity
The Texans followed the lead of Bill O’Brien, who refused to be anything but positive.
It is all seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks right now.
Somehow turn 0-3 into 11-5, an AFC South title and the playoffs during the same season when the Texans’ owner and founder passes away.
Down Jacksonville 20-3 on another Sunday at NRG Stadium. Celebrate the third division title in four years with flashy hats, T-shirts and locker-room selfies. Great. Congratulations. Then, immediately, what’s next?
Can you win at home next week, when it really counts?
Can you win on the road during the divisional round, when a single victory means so much to so many and professional careers start to be defined?
It’s a big TBD for the 2018 Texans and all that.
But I promise you this right now: Coach Bill O’Brien will be proud of this 16-game season for a long, long time.
The way his team remained united, only grew closer when real life took over, and rolled off a franchise-record nine consecutive wins, pushing itself toward the top of the top-loaded AFC.
Answering a backward 0-3 start — new season already on the line; offense misfiring and defense stumbling at the worst times — with an 11-2 finish.
Capturing the toughest division crown in the league, the season after all those injuries stacked up and the instant promise of Deshaun Watson ended up as 4-12 and major front-office change.
“That’s just coach O’Brien’s mentality. He’s never discouraged or talking bad or negative,” said Watson, after he finished his first full season of passing with 4,165 yards, 26 touchdowns, just nine interceptions and a 103.1 rating. “He always tries to find ways to be successful, regardless if adversity hits. He’s always being positive, making sure we’re staying on the same page, not breaking apart each other. He did a good job of making sure we do that.”
The Texans still must do more. The real test hasn’t even started yet, and those AFC South champs hats will soon be hidden if O’Brien’s Texans again falter before their home fans in a wildcard contest.
“We have loftier goals. I have loftier goals,” said J.J. Watt, who capped off his comeback season with 16 sacks and seven forced fumbles.
But the team truly followed its coach this season. O’Brien again got the best out of his 53 names when the days were darkest and the haters started pounding on the walls. And a year after the Texans hit their internal reset button, doubling down on a proud and fiery fifth-year coach, Houston’s football team recorded the second-best season in its history.
The Texans don’t win nine straight if they don’t believe in their coach.
The Texans became just the sixth team during the Super Bowl era to make the playoffs after an 0-3 beginning. Only one of the previous five (1992 San Diego Chargers) also won its division.
It could have been over. It almost nearly was.
The Texans fought, scrapped, soared, survived and kept fighting. They got very lucky in the final seconds. They were bailed out by crazy and conservative coaching on the other side. They won brilliantly, barely and incredibly ugly. Ultimately, they just kept winning.
“We were a couple plays away from changing this whole program around,” DeAndre Hopkins said. “And that’s what we did.”
For the first time since O’Brien arrived on Kirby Drive during the first days of 2014, he has a QB you can fully believe in as the playoffs await.
The Texans also officially have the best receiver in the NFL. As a literal one-man receiving show, Hopkins on Sunday totaled 147 yards via a career-high 12 catches. He finished the season with a career-high 1,572 receiving yards, while his 115 catches tied Andre Johnson for the team record in a season. When another show was over, Hop and Dre shared a podium.
Then an increasingly efficient QB — dart after dart, despite taking hit after hit — discussed the coach who guided the Texans through so much this season.
“Went from 4-12 to 11-5, so that speaks for itself, the success we’ve been having,” said Watson, who publicly vouched for O’Brien's return last season. “I’m still young. We’re still figuring out the relationship … and that takes time. But the great things and success we’ve been (having) is going to continue to grow. Once we get on that same page and we really, really understand each other, the sky’s the limit.”
The Texans’ offensive line allowed an NFL-high 62 sacks. The offense’s front wall randomly came and went, while the passing game lost receivers Will Fuller, Keke Coutee and midseason trade-acquisition Demaryius Thomas.
It was never easy.
It only became harder. A locker-room game ball handed to Cal McNair, Bob’s son, captured the long climb.
“Coach touched on it a little bit after the game. It’s been a difficult year for a lot of people, myself included. Just personal stuff,” tight end Ryan Griffin said. “It really speaks a lot about the team to come out here and put all that stuff away and really focus on what we had to do, week in, week out — not to mention the 0-3 start. A lot of things didn’t go right for the team, but that’s the character of the team.”
Two more wins are required to reach the AFC Championship Game, which the Texans have never reached.
This year will feel incomplete if it suddenly ends next weekend.
Work, more work and then more work. Minutes blending into hours and days; the incredible importance of one week instantly trumped by the next.
But there will be a moment when it all stops. Then time will settle in. Then the lasting memory will return.
The year the Texans started 0-3, finished 11-5, won their division and made the playoffs.
The 2018 season, when a resilient team followed the lead of its resilient coach.
“When you start out 0-3, it’s a tough, tough deal,” O’Brien said. “The only way you’re going to come back from 0-3 is with guys like that.”