The Los Angeles Rams are headed to the Super Bowl to face the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Houston Texans still don’t have a coach.
The Rams do have a target the Texans are interested in: offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell. The second-year coordinator under coach Sean McVay is also reportedly a target for the Jacksonville Jaguars. However, the Texans already have an edge over the Jaguars.
According to Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network, the Jaguars aren’t able to officially interview O’Connell because they did not conduct their first interview with him during the week leading up to the divisional playoffs. As such, the Jaguars can’t talk to O’Connell until after the Super Bowl on Feb. 13.
Important procedural note: If the #Rams win tonight, the #Jaguars aren’t allowed to officially interview Kevin O’Connell until after the Super Bowl because they didn’t do a first interview during divisional playoff week. https://t.co/KUgBREROYd
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 30, 2022
A team that was able to conduct an interview with O’Connell during divisional playoff week — according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter — were the Texans, although the Texans’ official coaching tracker on their website does not list O’Connell as a candidate.
If O’Connell is actually the candidate and the Texans aren’t yet able to officially hire him until after the Rams are out of the playoffs, it would make sense why the organization is continuing to interview candidates with no realistic chance such as Josh McCown. Houston is keeping up the appearance of continuing a coaching search when they actually have their guy, but can’t announce it just yet.
O’Connell is an offshoot of the Mike Shanahan coaching tree, which is where Gary Kubiak, former Texans coach, came from. McVay worked on Shanahan’s Washington staff from 2010-13 and ultimately landed the Rams job in 2017. O’Connell joined the Rams in 2020 as the offensive coordinator having previous worked in Washington from 2017-19. Going to O’Connell would be a return to what has previously worked in Texans history and could be the offense to help quarterback Davis Mills in his second year.
