A lot has transpired since we last heard from Houston Texans head coach and General Manager, Bill O’ Brien. In what has become the new normal in the sports world due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, coach O’Brien held a pre-draft press conference and answered questions from the media via the Zoom app. The audio also streamed out to the fans through the Texans social media pages so that they could hear his responses in real time.

Coach O’Brien has taken a lot of criticism for the moves he has made this offseason as general manager and he wasted no time addressing the biggest transactions in recent Texans history in the trading of All-Pro wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to the Arizona Cardinals for running back David Johnson.

“I know a lot of people are going to ask me about, probably, the transaction that made the most news, DeAndre Hopkins,” said O’Brien. “First and foremost, I will tell you that DeAndre Hopkins was a great player in Houston. He made a ton of plays for us and just did a great job. Obviously, the production is there, and everybody knows what that production is. I'd say with three years left on his contract, his representatives, himself, myself and our team of people, we spoke and we felt like relative to what I said earlier – salary cap, future, our team, being able to provide our team with more and more role players, layers of players – it was in the best interest of our team to move DeAndre to Arizona.”

“We feel like we made a really good deal with Arizona. We're so excited about having David Johnson on board here. We've got the 40th pick next week in the draft. We're really excited about that. We wish DeAndre the best. DeAndre is a great football player and he'll do well in Arizona. We wish him the best in Arizona.”

After explaining how Hopkins is irreplaceable, coach O’Brien expressed to the media how this year’s offense will look differently with the acquisition of Johnson, Tim Kelly taking over the play calling duties full time, and the diversity he has at the wide receiver position after signing Randall Cobb in free agency and trading with the Rams for Brandin Cooks.

“I think what we have at that receiver position right now is a very diverse group of receivers,” O’Brien said. “You have Will Fuller (V), who has produced in great ways when he's been healthy, he's produced a lot. You have Kenny Stills who came in here last year and did a really good job. Now you add Brandin Cooks, Randall Cobb, you've got Keke Coutee. You've got some guys there – DeAndre Carter, who we were able to bring back. You’ve got some guys there that I think will show the fans and really everybody that we have a very diverse group of wide receivers that we're really excited about being able to get to work with."

With the NFL Draft taking place on next Thursday, most coaches, GM’s, and scouts have had a very rough time evaluating college talent. Technology has played a major factor in communicating and O’Brien admitted that it’s a very non-traditional approach trying to get to know players through FaceTime, especially for a coach who has been in the profession as long as he has. He went on to say that his back patio has replaced his office at NRG for meetings with Executive Vice President of Football Operations, Jack Easterby and its actually the location where the Cooks trade took place.

Once the Hopkins trade was announced, there was a lot of uncertainty by the media and the fans on whether or not superstar quarterback Deshaun Watson was on board with losing his favorite target for the last three years.

“I would say that any conversation like that, with all due respect, I’d keep between myself and the player” O’Brien said. “I will say that we communicated a lot with Deshaun during this time. Any conversation that I would have with a player relative to those types of things, I just like to keep that in house. But yeah, we've communicated quite a bit with Deshaun and all the other players.”

That communication is very important when you place two new players in an offense that will be totally different once the Texans take the field this season. One thing that the quarantine has prevented is Watson not having any training time with his new wide receivers (Cobb & Cooks) to get the quarterback-to-receiver timing down. But coach O’Brien assured the fans that Watson is doing his due diligence as a leader to reach out to most of his offensive players and just keep them a brisk about all the little nuisances to be aware of once they take the field.

After revamping the offense this offseason, the Texans will now head into the draft looking to solidify a defense who has lost some of its key veteran players in free agency such as nose tackle D.J. Reader and cornerback Jonathan Joseph. With Houston making their first selection in the second-round (40th overall), coach O’Brien will have some decisions to make when it comes to selecting either an edge rusher or defensive back.

“I would say defensive line,” the general manager said. “Safety is another position I think we can add to. We’ve added Eric Murray, we’ve added Jaylen Watkins, but we can continue to add depth there. I’d say there’s not one specific need but there’s several.”

One thing coach O’Brien wanted the people of Houston to know was that their health and well- being takes the place of anything football related right now during these trying times of individuals losing their lives to COVID-19.

"First and foremost, I just want to reach out to all of you and just hope that everybody is healthy and safe,” O’Brien expressed to the media. “This is a very unusual time in our country, and I think before we dive into football, I just think it's really important from my family, to everybody that's on this call, to everybody out there to just wish everybody the best.

“It's really a tough time. I think everybody in Houston is doing a great job of social distancing and all of those things, but I think the biggest thing I want to do – especially as it relates to my family – is to thank the doctors, the nurses, the respiratory therapists, the first responders, the researchers throughout Houston and actually throughout our entire country who are caring for people with the virus and working tirelessly to try to develop a vaccine, develop testing, treatments.”