LOL, well of course there you go saying why all the QBs that were available would have been bad acquistiions. When I EXPLICITLY was just answering your question about who was available, not saying we should have gotten a specific one of those QBs. And you completely ignore the whole placeholder mess, where he replaced Fitzpatrick/Keenum for Hoyer/Mallet, and started the absolute worst one in Mallet. That led to the QB panic and acquisition of Osweiler I agree we are good at QB with Watson, although O'Brien almost got him killed and is holding him back IMO. Look at what Mahomes/Goff/Wentz get to do in those offenses. You don't have to move on with the same regime that drafted the QB, that's nonsense. 35 points in 5 games last year is all you can point to. The positive trend you keep talking about has disappeared. 7 good offensive games in 5 years is enough for you to say O'Brien is a good offensive coach You don't deny that you haven't watched the game or studied up on the Texans. Sorry but it's pretty much consensus that O'Brien is a bad OC.
I was only saying who was available. I wasn't saying they are better than Watson or that we should have traded a tons of picks for them, although that's worked out for the Rams and Chiefs.
This is bullshit. O'Brien ended up with stopgap because he wanted stopgap. Rick didn't go get the New England retreads on his own, O'Brien wanted them We didn't know Hoyer's ceiling? Lol! Give me a break. And no one is arguing that Fitz/Keenum were the future, just that they were much better placeholders than Mallet/Hoyer. O'Brien saw all of those guys up close and chose MALLET. You simply cannot deny that.
5 years in a row of bottom 10 offenses. He knows more than us, but he knows less than at least 22 other coaches.
Those four top-2 picks were not "available." And you likely mean the Eagles, not the Chiefs - look what the Eagles gave up for Wentz - it was a *boatload.*
The Rams, Eagles, and Chiefs all traded up to get their QBs. Even the Texans traded up to get Watson. So that means Watson was unavailable? "They're not available except for teams that were willing to trade picks." That means available. But even if you take those guys out, there were other QBs available. I'm simply disputing that the narrative that O'Brien had no option but to go with Mallet. I'm NOT arguing that we should have gotten any one of those. But the argument that "there was absolutely no other QBs for the first 3 years of O'Brien's tenure" is false.
Before you get too excited about your offensive line coach, look what the Cowboys are able to do with our favorite punching bag
So, essentially, *every* QB is technically available?... That's silly. Trades require a willing second party, lessening the control you have over the situation. Case in point, Tennessee owned the 2nd pick in '16 - how anxious would they have been to trade a franchise QB to a division rival? In terms of what they could reasonably control, there is not a long list of sure-fire QBs they've missed on.
A pointless hot take... good job. If you want to blame him for moving on after each QB showed little promise, fine. I won't pin Osweiler all on him though... more than enough smoke to lay blame on others, to the point that one basically lost his job likely due to this. Even though Watson's numbers are continuing to improve (better metric than last year's phenom season), and he's winning games... Its idiotic to change when the player is showing signs of success and the team is winning games... and most importantly, said player says he wants that coach to remain his coach. Name one example of a young QB forced to adopt a new regime who was actually having success. At the risk of further cementing your idiocy... I no longer attribute anything prior to the Watson era (good or bad) to any of this current regime. That's what happens when you actually get a QB that works... it begins a new era. If you've seen enough the last year+ with Watson to pull the plug, that's your hot take-ish, typical bandwagon fan stance... I'm saying that there was plenty enough there to not make a move in the off-season, and had the performance of the first 3 games of this year continued, the decision would be easy... but he gets some credit for getting this team to win games and getting Watson through the post-injury turnovers.
We've been lucky to have played a bunch of teams with losing records since our losing streak. Luckily all but two of the games we have left are also against teams with losing records. We couldn't have asked for a better schedule while our injuries heal and our team gets stronger. The division is ours to win now. I can't wait til the playoffs!!!!!
What? No. I simply listed QBs that were in the draft. The guys you said were not available were guys teams TRADED for. "what they could reasonably control" - this is a different question. The point is there were QBs OBrien could have gone after. I'm not arguing it would have been easy or cheap. I'm just arguing against the idea there was no one else available.
Answering your question is a hot take now. Anyways, I'm glad your not repeating your claim that no other QBs were available, because it's obviously wrong. But then, you don't watch the games or keep up with the NFL. No, I pin the blame on him for going after the worst QB he could find (Mallet) and getting rid of better "placeholders." You know this of course, which is why you tried this lame spin. Goff. And it's not that idiotic to remove a guy who clearly is a bad OC. The idea that Watson would fail without the mediocre O'Brien as his OC is laughable and an extreme hot-take. At the risk of further cementing your idiocy...I think O'Brien should get 100% credit for 5 games last year and 2 games this year but no blame how horrible the offense has looked in all the other games over 5 years. If you think that 7 good offensive games in 5 years is enough to keep O'Brien, that's your hot take-ish, typical bandwagon fan stance...I'm saying that there was plenty enough there to make a move in the off-season...and he gets some blame for the offense being bottom 10 again even with Watson starting every game. Again, bottom 10 offense 5 years running, but you see signs or something.
I've been keeping up with the NFL and posting here long before you ever joined... you can probably stop spouting off that hot take. A very petty complaint... there is no point in spinning your wheels with QBs that don't have star potential... you do know this as well, but you holding BOB to blame for it is like I said, petty. Goff sucked under the Fisher regime. Showed very little promise. Was almost looked like at like a bust. The comparison here is non-existent. Watson excelled unlike most rookie QB's before him.... changing that to fit your preconceived bias is just that, whereas Watson himself would be resistant to the change. If you didn't re-invest in this regime last year after they, A.) moved on from Smith, and B.) finally found a franchise QB... then there's no helping you understand how things work. You're a staunch defender of Kubiak, where he probably should not have survived 2010... but he got a fresh start with a new DC (Wade era), that led to his only real success with the Texans. You should use that direct example of how coaches can get new leases on teams when the parameters change for the better.
Again, you're cherry picking a stat with zero regard for what goes into that stat to convince yourself that your ridiculous opinion is valid - when all data proves otherwise. Top offense is based on one stat, total yards - which is and can be pretty meaningless. Don't believe me, see Tampa Bay who is currently 3rd overall in offense with 4075 total yards, or 452.8 yards per game. Meanwhile, their record is 3-6. Not to mention, that year after year the top NFL offenses tend to have a few things in common. They have an elite, all-pro QB, an elite all-pro rusher, or both. The top 10 offenses of 2017: New England - Elite QB New Orleans - Elite QB Pittsburgh - Elite QB LA Chargers - Elite QB Kansas City - Elite RB, TE, WR Jacksonville - Elite RB Philadelphia - Elite QB play (by stats) Atlanta - Elite QB Tampa Bay - Outlier (low points) LA Rams - Good to Elite QB, Elite RB Go figure, the top offensive teams year after year in the NFL have elite QBs and maybe an elite RB. Hmm... I wonder why? How's Jacksonville doing this year without Fournette? It's almost like 20+ of the current NFL teams are looking for their very own Tom Brady. CRAZY! Since BoB has been here in Houston, he has not had an elite RB, or an elite QB - yet he's still been able to win consistently. Lamar Miller is not an elite back, yet they are continually in top half of the league in rushing (2014: 5th, 2015: 15th, 2016: 8th, 2017: 14th, 2018: 15th). Why? Because when you have bad or inconsistent QB play, you run the ball more to slow the game down and limit chances for mistakes. Football freaking 101. DW4 has the potential to be elite, but his progression if it happens will happen over 2-3 seasons like Goff. Mahomes is not as good as his stats let on, he has an elite WR, TE and RB to help him boost his stats - and nearly 45% of all of his passing yards for the year are YAC. The Chiefs also have an absolutely terrible defense, so their chances of winning the AFC are pretty slim - even with that "fun to watch" offense.
But you're not watching the games this year. You don't seem to be aware of basic facts of how the Texans offense has been mismanaged the past few years under O'Brien. You aren't even aware of the data. Go read some analysis from people who follow the Texans for a living. They have the same complaints about the offense. And yet that's exactly what O'Brien did. Spun the wheels with placeholders. But you don't want to blame him. You asked the question, I answered it. Of course the situations aren't exactly the same, I never claimed that. You're just making things up now. Just because you fire the GM and get a franchise QB shouldn't give a bad offensive coach a new lease on life. That's exactly NOT how it works. O'Brien should be evaluated on his own performance, which is a bottom 10 offense every year, which you have no excuse for. Your Kubiak stuff is made up. I have said in retrospect we should have kept him, I was not a "staunch defender" at the time and I admitted I was wrong for not defending him back him. But Kubiak was completely different in one key respect: he built amazing offenses. His offenses ranked in the top half or top 10 every year. O'Brien, meanwhile, has no clue what he's doing offensively.Imagine Watson in a Kubiak offense, just for fun. It would be a top 10 offense.
Multiple problems here. Number one, O'Brien has more talent this year. Watson, Hopkins, Fuller. Same results: bottom 10 offense. He also inherited a good OL from Kubiak and did nothing with it. Number two, O'Brien is doing much of the talent evaluation. Somehow, Crennel is able to evaluate and bring in talented defenders, but O'Brien mangles the line, TE, and RB. If you think the talent sucks every year, then you should want O'Brien fired. Number 3, some of your examples are laughable. Jacksonville? Tampa? The Tampa one is funny because they are starting Fitzmagic who O'Brien had here his first year with a good OL and Arian Foster part of the season. What happened? Yep, bottom 10 offense. The Philadelphia one is a good contrast too. They lost Wentz last year and still won the Super Bowl. What happened when Watson went down last year? Pure dumpster fire. And the Rams and Chiefs are good contrast too. Very good young QBs, not clear those QBs are better than Watson, yet they are in dynamic systems that put up a lot of points. Watson is stuck in a system where Lamar Middle runs up the middle half the game.
You continue to state this again and again... I've watched every game this year. Your delusion knows no bound if THIS is your only consistent response. They sucked the first 3 games and deserved to lose. BOB was on the hot seat. While wins started coming, the offense still was struggling. Then Watson cut down on the turnovers, the running game started showing some signs, and the offense started putting up numbers starting in Indy. My literal words were "blame him for going from QB to QB..." when the reality is, none of those guys was a franchise type player that he "ruined". And in the end, they ended up with a QB that they're better off with... while you apparently wanted them to keep lesser ones? Smart analysis. So, hopefully, you're not so dense to realize that when situations are completely different, different moves happen... Goff SUCKED, and a regime change saved him. Watson was awesome... and continues to win with a coach he loves. A regime change would have been STUPID after last season. No, the franchise QB becoming a SUPERSTAR, with a coach that he loves working with, does give you a new lease on life. Just like Kubiak got a new lease on life just by getting a new DC... in fact, that sounds even more idiotic in retrospect but its no surprise that your football IQ thinks THAT is a good move, while keeping BOB with Watson doing well is a bad one. I'm just glad you continue to be the new dunce clown in here in BTG's exile... you're getting worse. Senility mixed with insanity. Its tough being the village idiot, but you make it look seamless.... another gem in the last post where you now give Crenel credit for bringing in all the good players on defense, while you continue to attribute other variables when the team plays well, but its all BOB's fault when a draft pick (defense or offense) doesn't work out, or the team loses. Again, if you're stupid enough to give him all the blame for things, then you're painting yourself in a corner when its time to hand out credit.
Our run offense is hot garbage, how some of u continues to defend that stupid running up the middle play astounds me. How can a "good coach" like Bob continues to use that play and only that play for every single team and every fking situation? A good coach would not use such an ineffective play "to set up the pass" every single time. I wouldnt call 3rd and long setting up the pass, but adding extra pressure on watson. Lack of pieces to do any other rush play? How did the previous regime solid oline devolve for people to use this excuse? Bob is getting wins in a cupcake schedule and some luck, but he doesnt inspire confidence in me with that predictable rush play to go far in playoffs.
Another reason why I dont trust this offense guru and his successes is bc he's in such a sht division. Some of us reject total yards as an indicator of how potent an offense is, okay how about this data. Offensive guru bob. 2014. 14th 23.3 pts per game (9-7 miss playoffs 2nd) 2015. Tied 21th 22.2 per game (9-7 division champ) 2016. Tied 28th 17.4 per game (9-7 division champ) 2017 17th 21.1 per game (dead last in division playoff) 2018 17th 24.0 per game (1st in playoff) How the hell are you going to beat everyone in the playoffs if you cant consistently score? Since 2010, 7 super bowl champs scored higher than 24. From what I see we suck at scoring points under bob in an offense heavy era, that's sad.
