HOUSTON -- Houston Texans head coach Bill O'Brien said Monday that he was using all of the time available to prepare his team to play Thursday night against the New England Patriots by sleeping at NRG Stadium.
O'Brien clarified on Tuesday that he was joking about staying overnight at the team's facility.
"My wife would kill me if I -- well, maybe not. She'd probably want me to sleep in the office more," O'Brien quipped.
Despite the jokes, the sentiment remained the same: Getting ready for the Patriots on the road on a short week will not be an easy task.
Though he has prepared the Texans for Thursday Night Football games before, the head coach said this is different because the game is being played across the country on the road against the Patriots.
The challenge of playing on a short week, cornerback Charles James II said, is having to to recover from the beating his body took in Sunday's 19-12 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
"Just not giving our body enough time to turn it around," James II said. "Some guys feel like they had been in a car wreck yesterday by going through so much punishment and tackles and what not. It's kind of hard on our bodies, but it's our job and we have to do it."
Quarterback Brock Osweiler called playing on Thursday night a "huge mental challenge."
"You're not really going to have any physical reps during the week, you're really not going to practice, you're just going to have a bunch of walkthroughs," Osweiler said. "You really need to focus in the meeting room, when you go home at night your studies need to be sharp, and you really just try to maximize your mental preparation time on the short week."
O'Brien and the Texans attempted to combat this by working ahead to plan for this game even before the regular season started. After the Texans' third preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals, O'Brien said he would work ahead to get the Texans ready for this game because he knew they would have a short week.
Even with all that preparation, James II said he wasn’t surprised to hear that O'Brien spent all night at the office.
"That dude is a lunatic," James II said. "That dude would do anything. I'm not surprised by that. He's a good coach. For him, he loves the game just like a lot of us do.
"I won't be surprised if he sleeps here again tonight."
