Arguing With Myself: Regarding Billiam (O’Brien)

Every so often, there comes a time in a person’s life where you find out a piece of information and you simply have no idea what to do with it or how to feel about it. You are of two minds about how to process this new information, and those two minds are in absolute conflict with one another.

I suppose I should start with the news. In case you haven’t heard, in the last few days, former Texans head coach Bill O’Brien, currently the offensive coordinator at the Nick Saban Rehabilitation Center and Spa for Wayward Coaches, has been getting interest from Trent Baalke, the general manager of the Jacksonville Jaguars, to be their next head coach.

Ordinarily rumors like this die quickly and I wouldn’t give it a second thought. But now that interest is also coming from their owner Shahid Khan and his mustache (the mustache has veto power in all business decisions). There’s a distinct possibility that we may get to see our favorite former head coach in teal coaching a (technically) NFL team, one that we would see twice a year for possibly the next 15 years.

Gentle reader, in the last few days, I am at loggerheads with myself about this. And when this happens, I like to air out my thinking like a pair of pants that got stuck in a sewer pipe.

Here is a transcript of that “conversation.”

UprootedTexan (that’s me): Oh you have got to be kidding me.

TexanUprooted (that’s also me): What?

UT: We may not be done with Bill O’Brien after all.

TU: What do you mean?

UT: You see this?

*gestures at Jags rumors*

TU: Soooooooo what’s the problem? It’s the Jags. Do we really care about this?

UT: Eh...*does creaky hand thing* kinda?

TU: Why?

UT: I don’t know, I guess I kind of feel bad for Jags fans because they might end up with our hand-me-downs.

TU: Again.

UT: *nods* Again.

TU: Why?

UT: Because the Texans made him a thing and his lust for power destroyed this franchise for the foreseeable future.

TU: How is that bad?

UT: Because look at those poor [kittens]. They’ve been through enough garbage for one—

TU: *glares*

UT: —two decades. Hiring BOB is only going to send them further down the rabbit hole. Plus, I hate the idea that he could rehab himself into something resembling a capable head coach in the span of a single damn year.

TU: But that’s their problem, not ours! If anything, we should be popping corn to watch as he ignites another trash fire in another professional football team.

UT: Professional?

TU: Withdrawn. But my point stands. We shouldn’t feel bad for them. If anything we should enjoy someone else falling into the same pit that we fell into back in 2014. I’ll get the popcorn and comfy chairs.

UT: Wait.

TU: Ugh, what now?!

UT: Isn’t this kinda like picking on the kid who eats paste in Kindergarten? They’re such an easy target and they’ve been at the bottom of the league for so long that it almost doesn’t feel funny to watch them flail around with BOB.

TU: Dude, we are still climbing out of the sinkhole that [kitten] dropped us into, made only worse by Jack Easterby, who he “stole” from New England, constantly pouring more sand into it because Cal McNair thinks it’s a [kitten]ing sandbox. The Jags might be the kid who eats paste, but the Texans are the kid who rips farts in class during naptime.

UT: Ugh.

TU: You’re right, maybe that was a bit far. There has to be one team that everybody has to look down upon. It’s just the natural order of things. It’s like if I get mad, I kick the dog. The dog, in turn, bites the cat. The cat then swipes at the rat and the rat bites the Jacksonville Jaguars. That’s just how this works, man.

UT: Very true. Doesn’t mean I like it though.

TU: But let me ask you this if you’re still not convinced: If you’re so concerned about the Jags, do you think they were concerned about the Texans when BOB was consolidating power in the front office and drafting absolute garbage? Were they sympathetic when we watched BOB play Tom Savage and [UNPERSON] who he claimed he could turn into actual, legitimate starting quarterbacks? Ohhhhhh—

UT: What?

TU: I just realized something. If the Jags do hire BOB, he’s going to report to Trent Baalke.

UT: And?

TU: Baalke got caught up in a huge power struggle with Harbaugh in San Francisco. If they hire BOB, he might wind up in another power struggle! Oh my [Durga], they have to hire him! Please please please please hire Bill O’Brien.

UT: You really don’t feel any pity for them, do you?

TU: Who?

UT: Jags fans.

TU: If they existed, I might. Besides, have you considered this? The last coach they hired was a complete trainwreck of a human being and won all of two games for the Jags just this year. This is the only team in the league where hiring Bill O’Brien would be a step UP from where they are now.

UT: Up?

TU: Like one of them toddler steps.

UT: Fair. Fair.

TU: Besides, it’s way more fun to watch someone who you know to be football poison corrode and dismantle a different football team than the one you care about. That’s what makes it funny!

UT: I suppose. I just wish he would’ve gotten hired to be Belichick’s coach in waiting. See some real chaotic [kitten].

TU: In a just world that might happen. This ain’t that though, poindexter.

UT: So I should go ahead and hope they hire him and watch the ball of bedlam that emerges in north Florida?

TU: Well...yeah. Bill O’Brien coaching another team is the height of schadenfreude. It’s the best entertainment we’d probably get next year, better than what we can probably expect from the Texans next year.

UT: I suppose...

TU: That’s the spirit!

UT: You are way too excited about this.

TU: Well...yeah. I enjoy chaos and disorder. They’re funny; especially when it happens to somebody else.

FIN.

Ah, it feels good to get that out of my head. Kind of relieves the pressure, like trepanning with words.

What do y’all think? If the Jags hire BOB, should we laugh our collective [kitten]s off? Or do we feel the faintest ounce of pi—sorry, I couldn’t finish that thought. Anyway, let us know what you think or if you think anything about this.