“Rick Ross woooooo.”
“All over that like stink on shit.”
Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien is on his way to being one of the more unexpected Hard Knocks legends. Guys like Rex Ryan, Bryan Cox and Chad Johnson you could see it coming — with O’Brien I didn’t expect this level of entertainment. He’s engaging, provocative and most importantly is giving Ryan a run for the most f-bombs dropped in the show’s history.
Episode two introduced us to two players for fighting for roster spots in linebacker Lynden Trail and Charles James II. Each had an interesting moment, but for opposite reasons.
Trail struggled in a scrimmage and didn’t do the best job taking criticism from linebacker coach Mike Vrabel, while James II got into an undrafted rookie for not carrying out an assignment. Every moment matters in their fight for a roster spot and it’s fascinating to see how different individuals handle it.
One player who knows he’s on the team that was featured heavily was linebacker Brian Cushing. On the field he comes off as your typical douche frat boy football player, but he seemed surprisingly chill when they gave a peak into his personal life with his wife and two young boys.
The Texans roster covers a bunch of different stereotypes with their top players — Cushing as stated above, Watt the perfect All-American everything, Vince Wilfork the funny fat guy and DeAndre Hopkins the pretty boy wide receiver (he does dress fly can’t hate).
Speaking of Wilfork, thank you HBO for a lesson in how to shave off the skin of the heel of your foot. I don’t know what I’d have done without that moment in my life.
A more fun lesson was O’Brien on the media. As someone who interviews athletes on occasion I’d prefer they didn’t follow their head coach’s bullet points of ignoring questions with generic answers saying nothing.
Jadaveon Clowney also made his first appearance, but next week’s episode will probably feature him more as he finally made his return to practice.
The quarterback battle between Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett continued with no one separating themselves. Running back Alfred Blue smartly didn’t say anything about the competition at the barber when asked knowing the cameras were around. This was an example of no matter how real you want a show to be sometimes it’s impossible to get the complete truth when people know what they’re going to say could end up on television.
It’s only preseason, but we should get an inside look into Peyton Manning versus J.J. Watt in the third episode which should be fun.
