The Carolina Panthers may have a bad record at 1-2 after three games into the 2019 season, but Houston Texans coach Bill O’Brien doesn’t believe the NFC South team is bad at all.
For O’Brien, part of the challenge in preparing for the Panthers in a Week 4 encounter at NRG Stadium Sunday is reinforcing to his team Carolina could hurt them and deliver their first home loss of the season.
“My belief on that is that you show them a bunch of tape on the opponent,” O’Brien told reporters Wednesday. “I mean, Carolina is a very good team.”
While O’Brien acknowledged that he could be up at the podium all day talking about how great the Panthers organization is from linebacker Luke Kuechly all the way up to owner David Tepper, O’Brien stated that just reminding how dangerous Carolina is from top to bottom was enough to get his players’ attention.
Said O’Brien: “Put the tape on, they’ve got a hell of a football team, they’ve got a really strong organization with [coach] Ron (Rivera) and [general manager] Marty (Hurney), and David Tepper at the top, and so this is a — that’s all you’ve got to do, in my opinion. That gets their attention right away.”
Carolina has found some quick success with backup quarterback Kyle Allen producing the club’s first win of the season in a 38-20 victory at the Arizona Cardinals in Week 3. The Panthers will look to come out of September with an optimistic 2-2 mark while the Texans aim to produce a 3-1 mark for the first time since 2016.
