What Saturday’s Belichick – O’Brien Showdown Taught Me About Winning

As Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien trudged across the field through a postgame swarm of players, coaches, photographers and security guards to congratulate Bill Belichick, who had just dealt him the most painful blow of his nascent head-coaching career—a soul-crushing 34-16 loss that jettisoned Houston from the playoffs, just two wins shy of a Super Bowl appearance—I couldn’t help but wonder two things.

First. Wow! I wouldn’t want to have walked in Bill O’Brien’s shoes last Saturday—even for a minute. As if coaching a high stakes NFL playoff game weren’t harrowing enough, he had to go up against his former boss—a man he spent years imitating and adulating, whose wildly successful career he can only hope to one day emulate. O’Brien must have been racking his brains, wondering—“What did I do to deserve this?