ANOTHER TOUGH ONE
After loss to Titans, what should the 4-8 Texans do about Bill O'Brien?
Dec 4, 2017, 12:39 pm
Bill O'Brien might be doing one of his best coaching jobs. Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Bill O’Brien is likely headed for his first losing season as a head coach. The Houston Texans lost another one on Sunday, falling to Tennessee 24-13 to drop to 4-8 on the season. O’Brien has had 9-7 records with the Texans in his prior three seasons, and had winning records in two years at Penn State. This will be the worst result of his career no matter what.
There are a lot of reasons to dislike O’Brien.
He can be combative and stand-offish. He is not a pleasant person. He is a coachspeak machine. His offenses -- even in their playoff years -- have been well below average, even though it is his supposed forte. There appears to be a disconnect/potential power struggle going on with GM Rick Smith. His agents or representatives often leak stories favorable to O’Brien. His judgement of what makes a quality quarterback is highly questionable. He took way too long to pull the plug on a bad offensive coordinator. His clock management is laughable. He has one year left on his deal after this, and there are rumblings about a potential extension. But the big question is should he even be back next season, with all things above being the determining factors?
The answer is a resounding, no doubt yes.
Despite the record, O’Brien might be doing the best coaching job of his career. He took over offensive playcalling fulltime this year, and the offense exploded when Deshaun Watson took over. But even after Watson’s injury, the playcalling was better. Tom Savage -- although he played well on Sunday until he made one critical mistake-- is just unable to execute it consistently at a high level. Plus, considering all the injuries on both sides of the ball, that the Texans are even competitive is impressive.
Two of their three best defensive players have been gone since early in the year with J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus. The WR/TE corps has been thin and beaten up all year, leaving very few viable weapons. Promising young RB D’Onta Foreman, too, is gone. And yet the Texans players have not quit on their coach. Even in the Monday night loss to Baltimore, they played hard. They just weren’t good enough to overcome Savage’s fatal mistakes that night.
On Sunday, they again played hard against Tennessee. They were down to two healthy receivers and one tight end. They could not run the football. They simply do not have enough talent on the field to overcome any mistakes at all -- like missed field goals or allowing untimely sacks. But the effort is there. So, too, is the playcalling. Those things are on O’Brien. It was on display in a 16-play drive that took over eight minutes in the third quarter. Shorthanded, with awkward personal packages, O’Brien’s team marched down the field... And missed another field goal. It’s hard to win football games when you do that. They dodged a bullet on the play before when Savage threw into heavy coverage. O’Brien can’t make that throw for him. Or make the kick. Of course, Tennessee marched down the field after the miss and took a 17-10 lead. The Texans needed to be perfect, and they had too many penalties -- including three straight false starts on fourth down on the final drive -- and missed field goals to beat a team like Tennessee. They were as good as they could be with what they had on the field, and they came up short. Even with Savage having the best game of his career -- 31 of 49 for 365 yards and a touchdown -- the Texans just weren't good enough. Savage only had one interception, and it came throwing into double coverage in the end zone on simply a bad decision.
That’s not on O’Brien, no matter what crap he spews in the postgame presser. The Texans were in the game with less than two minutes to play. And then Savage made another mistake, and the Titans added a late touchdown run to ice the game.
O'Brien should return next season. And he should get a chance to coach Watson for a full year. Yes, he is the one who insisted Savage can play. That, and all the reasons above are why he should not be given an extension. It is one of the worst arguments in the world that a coach in the last year of his contract can’t be effective because assistants are worried about their jobs and players won’t listen. It is a results-based business. Everyone should constantly be worried. Players have contract years; coaches should too. And if O’Brien can do a good job again next season when he has his team healthy, he will get paid somewhere.
And he should. That’s how things ought to work. But he deserves the opportunity to earn that contract. And that means coming back next season. That should be a no-brainer.
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.