Houston Texans: The amount of power Bill O’Brien is getting is ridiculous

Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien has just been given a ridiculous amount of power by being named the general manager. What’s up at Kirby Drive?

We haven’t heard much of a peep out of the Houston Texans this offseason in regard to moves but I imagine we’ll be hearing more out of them once the season is over and the Super Bowl champion has been declared.

This Super Bowl will be one for the ages as this matchup is about as even as you can get with Kansas City Chiefs reaching the big game for the first time in 50 years and the San Francisco 49ers showing how quickly they’ve risen into an elite-level team.

Both teams are immense success stories this season and the Vince Lombardi trophy will culminate their tireless efforts to be great throughout the 2019 campaign.

As in regard to the Houston Texans, we can only hope that they reached the promised land one of these days and their brass apparently thinks that Bill O’Brien is the man to lead them there.

O’Brien has been granted the title of general manager along with his head coaching duties and his right-hand man, Jack Easterby, has been promoted to executive vice president of football operations.

This news comes shortly after long-time senior vice president Chris Olsen, was fired about two weeks ago.  After I heard that news, I knew something was up but I couldn’t even fathom something like this happening.

Chris was extremely talented and responsible for the Houston Texans‘ lean business model of getting more for less capital spent so obviously O’Brien wants to move in a different direction.

The biggest problem I have with this move is that O’Brien is being rewarded for laying an egg against the Chiefs in the AFC Divisional Round a few weeks back when he probably should’ve been shown the door.

It’s inexcusable to be up 24-0, only to allow Patrick Mahomes to allow five straight unanswered scores and fake punt call that has us all still steaming that it was actually called.

But trying to think like Cal McNair, chairman of the Houston Texans, who likely made the final call on such a move, O’Brien did a decent job with the moves in the front office.

Yes, they traded Jadeveon Clowney but they were able to get Jacob Martin, Barkevious Mingo and Gareon Conley out of the deal, which all were healthy contributors to the team this season.

The Carlos Hyde for Martinas Rankin swap with Chiefs turned out to have extremely fruitful results, with Hyde having his first 1,000+ rushing yards season in his career.  I’m positive that he’s a lock to return to the team in 2020 and likely beyond.

The trade for Laremy Tunsil that was engineered, their left tackle of future, was put together along with Kenny Stills in the package as well.  The team had to give up some early picks for the next two seasons but that trade has also worked out as well.  Tunsil continues to show how

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talented he is and Stills has been a nice plug-in for Will Fuller, who spent a good chunk of 2019 on the shelf.

But this offseason will show their true test of mettle as they don’t have a first-round pick for the draft this Spring.  If they still can put together a winner despite the challenges that they’re facing, you can better believe that O’Brien will go full-term with his contract, to which he now has two years left.

We’ll have to see what happens but I really wanted to have them bring in a general manager from the outside, a talented mind.

This move is not necessarily unprecedented as we know Bill Belichick calls the shots with the New England Patriots but to publicly give the title to the head coach is something I’ve never heard of so you can certainly say the Houston Texans are trailblazers in that sense.

But did you think O’Brien would cede power to someone he didn’t trust?  We know he wasn’t going to do that.

Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get ready for 2020.