<
        >

          NFL Nation

          By giving up playcalling, Bill O'Brien shows faith in OC Tim Kelly

          play
          Which free agents could benefit from market value? (1:25)

          Victor Cruz and Field Yates pick the players they think will benefit from being overvalued by the NFL free-agency market. (1:25)

          • Sarah Barshop, ESPN Staff WriterMar 5, 2020, 06:00 AM ET
            Close
              Sarah Barshop covers the Los Angeles Rams for ESPN. She joined ESPN in 2016 to cover the Green Bay Packers for ESPN Milwaukee. She then moved to Houston to cover the Texans. She came to ESPN after working as a writer and editor for Sports Illustrated. You can follow her on Twitter @sarahbarshop.
            Follow on X

          HOUSTON -- When Bill O’Brien announced last week that he was handing over playcalling duties to Tim Kelly, the Houston Texans coach praised the job his young offensive coordinator already was doing before quickly joking that he better not speak too highly of him because he wants to keep him in Houston.

          In O’Brien’s six seasons with the Texans, he has continued to gain more influence in the organization, outlasting two general managers -- Rick Smith and Brian Gaine -- to take over the job himself. Now that he has control of the front office in addition to his head-coaching duties, it's on O'Brien even more to produce a winning team. That has led to the realization that to be successful, he has to prioritize keeping his bright young coaches in the organization.

          O’Brien sees Kelly as a future head coach.

          "[Kelly is] a really bright guy," O'Brien said. "He's a really good coach. Players really respect him. He just does a great job. Great knowledge of the whole offense from the passing game to the running game.”

          Kelly, 33, has been with O'Brien since serving as a graduate assistant on his staff at Penn State. Although Kelly wasn’t calling plays during the regular season in his first year as offensive coordinator, he was in charge of many meetings.

          New defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver is in a similar situation as Kelly after taking over for Romeo Crennel. Promoting from within is something new for O'Brien, who watched quarterbacks coach Sean Ryan move on to the Detroit Lions after the 2018 season to pursue his aspirations of one day calling plays in the NFL.

          Weaver was promoted to defensive coordinator after the Tennessee Titans showed interest in him to replace the retired Dean Pees as coordinator there.

          "Weave [Weaver] has a great presence,” O’Brien said. “He was a former player and has coached for a long time. He's been in different schemes; he's done an excellent job with our D-line. ... He’s very smart, and the players have a lot of respect for Anthony and he's going to bring a lot of different ideas and creativity to our defense.”

          Regardless of why O’Brien decided to make the changes, it shows that he realizes that to have continued success, especially after being named general manager by Texans owner Cal McNair, it will require more delegation of control than he previously was willing to relinquish.

          Of course, O'Brien hopes that giving up the playcalling also frees him up to take a look at the bigger picture on game day as well. At the NFL combine last week, O’Brien said he doesn’t think this will change his in-game role “too much,” but that it does allow him to focus more on the whole game instead of sitting on the bench between series with quarterback Deshaun Watson, Kelly and the rest of the offense.

          “I think I'm not going to do probably as much of that,” O’Brien said. “I think I'll do more about being able to focus on the whole game, how the game is being played and things like that.”

          The biggest picture that O’Brien must put into focus will be how to get this Texans team past the divisional round of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.