Bill O’Brien is taking over play-calling in an attempt to look smart

Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien is making offensive coordinator Tim Kelly a scapegoat.

Not only have the Houston Texans started out the 2020 season at 0-3 — albeit against three of the league’s best teams in Kansas City, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh — but they’ve ended up here in large part because of a sputtering offense that hasn’t topped 21 points in the first three weeks.

Texans head coach/GM/overlord Bill O’Brien decided once again that he is the solution to Houston’s problems, and the head coach/GM decided to add offensive coordinator to his long job title.

O’Brien is reportedly taking play-calling duties away from offensive coordinator Tim Kelly, meaning that he will likely have a huge say in the offensive game plan against the 0-3 Minnesota Vikings.

Bill O’Brien assumed play-calling duties after the hard part of their schedule

It’s easy to see what O’Brien is doing here. After letting Kelly get slaughtered by three excellent defenses, O’Brien is taking over against an 0-3 Vikings team and a 1-2 Jacksonville Jaguars team that will almost assuredly pick in the Top 10.

If Deshaun Watson starts to return to Pro Bowl form, O’Brien will credit himself for the drastic change.

The Texans have plenty of problems on offense that are in no way Kelly’s fault. The offensive line outside of Laremy Tunsil remains a wreck, David Johnson doesn’t look like the Pro Bowler we saw in Arizona, and, perhaps most important of all, trading away DeAndre Hopkins has left their once sterling receiving corps rudderless.

The Texans are still inexorably tied to O’Brien, as ownership is perfectly comfortable with letting him have as much, if not more, power within the organization than Bill Belichick has within the New England Patriots.

The key difference, however, is the fact that Belichick consistently wins, and O’Brien has yet to equal that success rate despite Watson at quarterback.