Bill O’Brien Gets Let Go
The first coach fired is never the one you expect it to be, is it? I was pretty convinced it would be Gase, with Patricia being the dark horse. BoB was probably always going to be fired, but I figured the guy who reached the playoffs last season would get a bit more leeway than the other two travesties.
I guess he signed his death warrant when he took over the GM job and therefore couldn’t throw anyone under the bus in his stead when things went south. Then he traded away the best player on the team for peanuts. Then they started 0-4. Funnily enough, BoB is probably the best “Belichick tree” coach we’ve had. You could even argue he wasn’t a total bust. The Texans reached the playoffs many times under BoB and compared to the likes of Patricia he’s positively solid. But fate comes for us all.
But seriously lol the dude traded Nuk. You can’t come back from that. It seemed like BoB was at odds with a lot of players towards the end there, namely golden boy Watt. BoB probably should have been fired after last season. But hey, at least now they get to just sorta fuck around during a weird irregular year and take their time finding a new coach and GM. This should be a fairly attractive job, too. You got the most important piece already and a decently solid team with just a few big holes.
Apparently there was a whole player revolt and I think some assistant coaches were in on it too
this isn’t what I meant when I said the Texans are revolting
You know, it just occurred to me that Watson’s contract didn’t get its entrance into the Money saga yet.
As a dolphins fan, I say thank you Bill O’Brian
He’s been our best GM in the Ross era lol
I find this funny. But also sad. Hope the Dolphins get good again soon. BUT, while we are on the subject of the Belichick coaching tree…hope that works out better for the Phins than the Lions. Seriously, Matty P needs to go.
aaaaaaaaaaah that last panel rekt me
Breaking: DeShaun Watson injures his throwing hand on broken glass, expected to miss 2-4 weeks. JJ Watt also injured his hand, questionable against Jaguars on Sunday.
Not sure if this was noticed but here.
UHHHHHH DAVE? You a time traveler
The Draw Play comic #1042
Because is he? We know he can be. We’ve seen good Nick Foles. But we’ve also seen plenty of mediocre to bad Nick Foles. Outside his first year as the Savior and his late season heroics on the Eagles, he’s been pretty much shit. Nothing special. Completely forgettable. I couldn’t tell you what he did on any of his other teams outside Philly. So is he better than Mitch? Probably, but not by much. Foles has experience but Mitch has more experience in the current system. This might genuinely end up being a QB competition that Foles loses (and then wins in week 3 when Matt Nagy has to try and save his job so he benches Bitch Mitch).
Even before he was GM, O’Brien wielded nearly GM-level influence in roster construction, which resulted in him trying to turn Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett into Tom Brady. Somehow, he was even worse at financial aspect of being a GM than he was at talent evaluation, dang.
Still, he was a solid but unspectacular head coach in that role alone… but one with a far bigger head and mouth than his abilities justified. His bluster got him the keys to every part of the Texans organization, he got everything he wanted from the team. Which is wild. He probably should have been fired years ago really, the fans largely left his bandwagon long long ago, but I get the McNairs being reluctant to change when they guy kept hanging up AFC South banners. Handing him the GM title after him being just fine as a head coach was baffling.
I’ll miss the buttchin comics, but I will not miss seeing the real life thing on local news every week.
Reminds me of that scene in Blazing Saddles where the sheriff holds a gun to his own head and holds himself hostage: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/MisguidedHappygoluckyHornbill-size_restricted.gif
first off, great comic! i LOLed.
second, DEADSPIN IS BACK BAAAAYBEEE! Defector.com, all the idiots you loved, doing their own thing. i ponied up for a sub, and it’s money well spent. it’s like the old days.
OH SWEET BABY JESUS, thanks for the heads up, man! My only concern is it’s 2020, so these guys are probably about to die of simultaneous heart attacks or something. =/
As a Giants fan, I was in a thorough fit of giggles with their “NFC East is so bad!” article. This line in particular was hilariously spot on:
“Rudderless, charmless franchises clinging to outdated roster-construction strategies, led by moon-hyped young players doomed to failure by poor systems from the minds of poor hires overseen by meddling ownership. (If you’re a fan of an NFC East team, and you’re wondering how the previous sentence so accurately described your specific team—it’s all of them.)”
yeah i was like… well maybe the silver lining is that i read nothing about the nfl this year (except TDP, of course)… sigh…
but then i heard they’re back, and doing why your team sucks and i was all shut up take my money gimme gimme
so now i waste my sunday morning catching up on the week’s articles while pretending to do historical research.
This is one of the most surprising expected firings I’ve seen in a while. I think we all knew Bill O’Brien was getting fired eventually, but seeing it actually happen was still pretty unexpected. Could be the timing, like you said. The fact that he was the first coach to get axed is pretty remarkable, considering Gase and Patricia exist.
It’s too little, too late for Houston, though. The damage has already been done and it will likely take multiple years to even start to reverse some of it. It’s pretty sad. The Texans have had a pretty good roster for a while, but they could never get over the Divisional hump in the playoffs. The most BoB stat is probably the fact that the Texans have won the AFC South 6 times since he’s been the head coach, yet remain the only team in that division to never make the AFC Championship over that same period. Goes to how bad of a coach he is in the clutch.
DEFENISTRATION!