Of all the hopeful Bill Belichick clones, Bill O’Brien got the closest to copying the master’s design.
In the end, the success, the structure, the identity and the culture still amounted to a Xerox copy. It was better than anything reproduced by Josh McDaniels or Eric Mangini or Matt Patricia, but still a failed knockoff of the Belichick template. And as history has shown us, the inability to mask the forgery carries a price.
That debt continues to be paid with a pink slip.
This is going to be the story of Bill O’Brien’s end with the Houston Texans, told in chapters about power struggles, consolidation of authority, overreach, and finally, a failed bid to take a monumental step that ultimately ended in a firing.