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Houston Texan's head coach Bill O'Brien regrets not calling a timeout to give officials a chance to review a critical Rob Gronkowski catch in his team's 27-20 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday.
Per Josh Alper of PFT, O'Brien said that with “hindsight being 20-20 … surely I would have taken a timeout to see if they would at least buzz down to take a look at the play.”
The Patriots quickly fired off another play before anything could be done. But even though O'Brien missed his chance, he thought at the time the play was a legitimate catch that wasn't worth challenging.
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“On the coaches’ film, I really do,” O’Brien said, via Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle. “He went up, he caught it, he kept both hands underneath it. Now, relative to some TV angles and other video angles that I’ve seen, maybe it was questionable. But from the coaches’ vantage point on the coaches’ tape, it looked like a catch to me. … So I just felt like that was a catch and the clock was running and I felt like I did not want to take a timeout there. I felt like we could still hold them to a field goal in that situation.”
O'Brien believed his defense could hold the Pats to a field goal. Unfortunately for him, Gronk's late first-half catch helped them advance down the field and score another touchdown, making the score 21-3 in their favor at halftime. The Texans made an impressive second-half surge, but they fell just short. In a one-score game, O'Brien's decision looks like a glaring mistake.
The Texans will take on the injury-ridden Tennessee Titans in Week 2. While it's unlikely that they will face the same situation in Week 2, O'Brien should be sure to make a different call if the opportunity presents itself.
