https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...e-bill-obrien-chatter/?utm_term=.efb09c354271
Try as they might, the Texans can’t shake the Bill O’Brien chatter
Matt Bonesteel
Early Lead
January 9 at 2:30 PM
The message was clear after the Houston Texans secured just the third playoff victory in franchise history on Saturday, at least publicly: Coach Bill O’Brien wasn’t going anywhere. “I don’t know where they get that,” team owner Bob McNair
told reporters after the game. “There’s nothing to it. I got a chuckle out of it. I’m not going to fire him. We’re already talking about next year. Forget that. If I were you, I wouldn’t repeat it because it’s false.”
Said O’Brien himself,
in a chat with MMQB’s Peter King: “I don’t know where it’s coming from, honestly. That’s probably a question for someone else. All those things out there, I’m not familiar where they’ve originated from, and I certainly want to finish what we started and bring a championship to Houston. That’s why I came here.”
[If your team played defense like the Texans, you wouldn’t fire Bill O’Brien, either]
But King made sure to add, in the very next paragraph, that he thinks O’Brien “would be a strong candidate in at least two of the six current openings.” Then, on Monday, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio brought up that many league observers still don’t think O’Brien is satisfied with his situation.
“The talk hasn’t ended because it’s widely believed in league circles that O’Brien is not happy in Houston. (One league source used extremely colorful language in explaining O’Brien’s mind-set.),”
Florio writes.
Yahoo’s Charles Robinson explained why the talk refuses to subside even in the aftermath of a playoff victory.
“The people who know O’Brien believe he wants more. Specifically, more power to shape his team. More influence over his roster. More power over draft picks. More power to cut any player he sees fit at whatever moment he deems necessary. Not to mention more power over the local media, which O’Brien apparently believes gets a significant amount of leeway from the franchise,”
Robinson says.