Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien received his NFL coaching start with the New England Patriots. After spending 13 years in the college ranks, serving as offensive coordinator for both Georgia Tech and Duke, O’Brien was named an offensive assistant for the 2007 Patriots. He quickly ascended to the role of wide receivers coach in 2008, quarterbacks coach in 2009-10, and offensive coordinator in 2011.
During his time with the Patriots, O’Brien learned the difficulties of coaching- and few jobs are more difficult than coaching Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
"One of the most difficult jobs you can have is coaching Tom because he wants to be coached,” O’Brien said on CBS Houston, via Yahoo! Sports. “You coach him every single day, every minute of the day, and all year round because he’s all football. He’s a phenomenal guy and the reason why he is what he is, is because he’s obsessed with football. He’s a great family guy, don’t get me wrong, but I mean, he’s obsessed with football. So when you’re coaching him you better be ready to go at a moment’s notice whether it’s for a meeting, or practice or game, and it made me a much better coach when I was fortunate enough to coach him."
Brady is preparing for football 24/7 and that’s part of the reason why he gets along with current offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. Brady reportedly “speaks with Josh more than he does his own wife” and is “always texting and talking with Josh in the middle of the week.” Whoever is the next Patriots offensive coordinator will have to be ready to step into McDaniels’ large phone bill.
O’Brien also noted that Brady’s thorough foundation of knowledge was a positive at times and definitely masked any coaching deficiencies on the field.
"If you called a play in the game — a lot of our plays are choices, you can run this or this — and either choice stunk, he would be able to in two seconds, change that to what he saw, boom, and this is what we're running, and he did that,” O’Brien said. “You can't do that with everybody. And he did that with his own brain power, based on his own experience ... He's one of those guys, if he wasn't a football player, I always say he could be a surgeon, a doctor, a lawyer, whatever, he's that type of brain power."
Brady is possibly the smartest quarterback in football right now and certainly the most experienced. He has seen every type of defense and he’s playing at a speed faster than at any other point in his career. This is how Brady’s decades of hard work is taking form on the field- and O’Brien had a front row seat to the show.