Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien had little to offer after the game except for the admission that his team just had no answer for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien was as dumbstruck as the rest of us. For those who watched the Kansas City Chiefs not only dominate the Texans by a final score of 51-31 but also overcome an early 24-point deficit, it’s hard to find words to explain what happened. The Chiefs simply found a different gear and never looked back.
After the game, O’Brien was quick to give credit to the Chiefs for their efforts in the Divisional Round win over the Texans. When speaking to reporters, however, he didn’t offer much in the way of substance to answers about what went wrong exactly. The team was simply outmatched.
“There’s not much you can say. These guys gave great effort this year. They battled hard and you know we just didn’t do enough in the end,” he said when asked about his locker room message to his players.
“I think we definitely have to coach better. We didn’t do enough to put our guys in good enough positions to make plays. We’ve gotta do a better job of coaching.”
The Texans went up by an incredible 24 points as the road team at Arrowhead in the first quarter, and the sky was definitely falling for Chiefs Kingdom at that point. Fans were upset and the Chiefs were not only watching Deshaun Watson and company move the ball at will, but they were shooting themselves in the foot with dropped passes and stupid mistakes.
O’Brien said the early lead was nice, but once his team lost momentum, the Chiefs never let go of it.
“I think these games are always games with momentum and momentum swings,” said O’Brien. “We had momentum at that point. It just felt like we were going to try to make a play there and it just didn’t work.
“I mean, 24 to nothing is a really great lead. No doubt about it. But I don’t think any lead is safe versus these guys. That’s why we felt like… I mean, we needed 50 points and we weren’t able to do that … When you’re going against a team that’s that explosive on offense, you have to keep scoring and we weren’t able to do that.”
O’Brien didn’t take time to explain his fake punt or a couple other plays, but he did offer a reason why he settled for a field goal late in the first instead of going for it on fourth down so close to the goal line on a drive that could have put the Chiefs back 28 instead of 24.
“I felt like I had a first down there, and when I didn’t, I just felt like we didn’t have a great play there for the fourth down at that point in time so I felt like it was better to kick the three. That’s a very fair question but I felt like it was better to kick the field goal,” said O’Brien.
On the ensuing kickoff, Mecole Hardman, Pro Bowl returner for the Chiefs, brought it back to Texans territory and gave quarterback Patrick Mahomes a short field to work with. It wasn’t long until the Chiefs scored their first touchdown, a strike to Damien Williams that would kickstart the team toward a final score of 51.
“He’s a great player. It’s hard to stop him. He’s got a great offense. We just didn’t do anything to really stop him,” said O’Brien about facing Mahomes.
The Texans now face a long offseason with some difficult personnel decisions and almost no draft picks to speak of. Meanwhile, the Chiefs host the Tennessee Titans for the chance to go to the Super Bowl.