Houston Texans: Best candidates to take over as head coach after firing Bill O’Brien

The Houston Texans have many possible candidates to become their next head coach.

What a wild ride this week has already been for the Houston Texans. On the field they dropped to 0-4 on the season, and off the field on Monday they fired head coach Bill O’Brien from not only that position, but he lost his job as general manager too.

O’Brien coached exactly 100 games with the Houston Texans, finishing at 52-48 overall, and has a playoff record of 2-4 with the franchise. In the parts of seven seasons as the head coach of the Texans, O’Brien’s teams made the playoffs four times, winning the AFC South championship each time they made the playoffs, including the past two seasons.

After making the playoffs the success was limited, and after last seasons all-time epic collapse against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Houston Texans should have made their peace with that loss and parted ways with the head coach then. Instead O’Brien was officially promoted as the general manager and head coach, made some franchise-changing decisions, and proceeded to not win a single game in the first month of this NFL season.

Those four losses to start the 2020 season led to O’Brien no longer being the leader of the franchise, and now the Houston Texans have a few issues moving forward. Remember the Texans under the watch of O’Brien traded away their 2021 first-and-second round draft picks, they traded away one of the very best wide receivers in the game, and on the field this year never gained any momentum to be competitive for a complete game.

Now it is time to start moving forward and to start wishing, debating and dreaming of who will become the next head coach of the Houston Texans. Next are 10 possible candidates who could be that choice.

10. Jim Harbaugh, Michigan head coach

It is no secret that Jim Harbaugh hasn’t had the greatest tenure at the University of Michigan as their head coach, but when he was the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers his teams battled strong in the NFC West, plus even went to the Super Bowl.

Harbaugh should be a head coach in the NFL again some day, and he’s worked with some well-known quarterbacks in his time as a coach whether it be Andrew Luck in college at Stanford, or while with the 49ers when he had Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. Plus, Harbaugh himself is a former NFL quarterback.

It would be interesting to see how Harbaugh would work with Deshaun Watson in his progression as an NFL quarterback, but again, with Harbaugh’s brash ways would his style be too much like Bill O’Brien’s? Then again, as a head coach in the NFL, Harbaugh was one win away from being a Super Bowl champion, so he’s been there before while in charge and can have success in the NFL.