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With the Texans defeating the Jaguars today, the Texans are now officially the 2015 AFC South Champions! NRG Stadium will host a playoff game on Saturday, January 9th, or Sunday, January 10th, as Houston is now officially locked into the fourth seed in the AFC.
Despite starting the year at 2-5 thanks to a disastrous carousel at quarterback, a shockingly inept defense, and a season-ending injury to Arian Foster, Bill O'Brien rallied the troops and managed to win seven of his next nine games. The defense stiffened immediately upon drastic personnel change being made, while the brilliance of DeAndre Hopkins managed to keep the offense afloat in close contests. Very few of Houston's wins this year looked "pretty", but their unique brand of win-at-all-costs football somehow got the job done. Who knows what lies in store for the Texans in the Wild Card round next week, but I do know one thing -- this team has one hell of a football coach.
Since O'Brien took over as the head honcho of this organization, the Texans have a 18-14 total record with a 9-3 record inside the AFC South. In that same time frame, O'Brien has had to play eight different quarterbacks: Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mallett, Tom Savage, Case Keenum, Brian Hoyer, T.J. Yates, Brandon Weeden, and B.J. Daniels. Of those eight signal-callers, five of them have been injured at one point or another, with four of those injuries being of the season-ending variety. That's right--Bill O'Brien has a record above .500 as a head coach in the NFL despite getting wins with six different starting quarterbacks in 31 games. No other team has had that much rotation at the game's most important position in the last two seasons, and certainly no other team in recent memory has managed to make the playoffs under such ridiculous circumstances. The AFC South may be bad, but Bill O'Brien is very, very good.
Rejoice, fellow Texans fans. Not only has your team made the playoffs, but that team is being lead by possibly the most resourceful head coach in the entire National Football League. If that doesn't give you at least a little bit of hope against the rest of the AFC's elite, I don't know what will.
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