Bill O'Brien: The Texans belong to you.

Bob McNair still owns the team. Rick Smith remains the general manager. But the moment Andre Johnson walked away, asking Monday for a trade or his release, O'Brien took total control.

The old ways are over. The new world has begun.

These are O'Brien's Texans. He shaped them into his image in 2014, via instant culture change and resilient, gutsy play. Now, they're being hammered to fit the unbreakable constraints of the NFL's hard salary cap and the unflinching reality that better, stronger franchises embraced years ago.

The NFL is cold. The NFL is unforgiving. The NFL is absolutely ruthless. Pro football doesn't care who you are, what you did or what you still hope to become. Steve Smith (Carolina for 12 years, Baltimore for one) is living proof. As are hundreds of players - statistics and values, not names - annually shredded by the salary cap grinder.

This is why Seattle and New England - the only pro team O'Brien saw from the inside out before moving his life to Houston - are football powerhouses. This is why the initial lasting image of Johnson's erasure - as one-sided and incomplete as it may be - was so jarring to Texans devotees, who have long been used to complacency and comfort.

Johnson wasn't good enough anymore. He cost too much to begin with. He would soon be 34. He had to go.

McNair's name wasn't attached to the move. Smith was involved in the decision but has publicly remained silent. O'Brien hasn't opened his mouth - only Johnson's side has. But the second-year coach is the only Texan linked to the biggest, cruelest event in franchise history.

Related: The Andre Johnson no one knows

O'Brien and Johnson in a room. A conversation occurs. The coach speaks. The coach wins. The player exits, never to return.

Which is exactly how it should be. Bill Belichick would have pulled the trigger for the Patriots. Pete Carroll the same for the Seahawks. The old Texans? McNair gave the already aging, often frustrated Johnson a worthless promise he would wear one uniform for life. O'Brien's Texans? Goodbye, No. 80. Thanks for everything. Really. But goodbye.

O'Brien's vision

Since O'Brien has become McNair's new chosen one, ex-QB Matt Schaub has been discarded without a glance backward, veteran tight end Owen Daniels has been casually released and the team's 53-man roster has endured constant change. The driver: Texans Coach No. 3, inching closer toward his vision of what a pro football team and the organization that surrounds it should be.

Eras end. The Texans and 31 other NFL squads make hard, life-altering and team-changing decisions daily. Johnson's expected release runs much deeper and captures much more. Symbolically, it represents the last chapter of 2002-13 and the beginning of a new book of Texans history. Officially, it means that anything and everything the Texans do from this point forward will be marked 2014-To Be Determined, bearing O'Brien's hard mark.

The NFL's premier modern franchises are always-on-the-clock football factories. The Texans for too long have been run like a company store, knowing they are by far the biggest game in town and often taking advantage of the fact. They could get away with average. They could live off just enough.

Still miles away

The end of Gary Kubiak and wreckage of 2-14 in 2013 changed that. O'Brien is privately too warm to ever take on the cold glare Belichick casts from afar. But the second-year coach is fully aware his rebuilt team is miles away from the next level of the NFL, where the real games are played and 9-7 represents a wasted year.

It's worth repeating every time the Texans make a major move and will remain true until the franchise becomes elite: The Texans have never been great and have rarely been very good.

O'Brien wants greatness.

Johnson, the lone solider who remained from the early wars, is left to gamble. Knowing his legacy with the only team he's ever played for will remain safely intact, Johnson has placed his football future and millions of dollars on the line for the hope of a shining ring.

O'Brien, the new general, is rolling harder. He's entering Year Two surrounded by bigger question marks and more era-altering decisions. He's been given extra rope but suddenly has less leeway. The man who decided to let go of the greatest Texan must now become the Texans' greatest coach. And then some.

It took Belichick 25 years tunneling through the NFL's underground and failure in Cleveland to bring four Super Bowl trophies to New England. He still needed All-World quarterback Tom Brady.

It took Carroll two lost NFL jobs and a dual life split between college and the pros to carry Seattle to back-to-back championship games. He still needed genre-defying QB Russell Wilson.

O'Brien is just 14 months into his first NFL head-coaching job. He doesn't know who his starting quarterback will be in 2015. His No. 1 overall pick in 2014 was an injury-plagued, rookie-year washout; the draft was initially more miss than hit. But O'Brien has 9-7 to build on, J.J. Watt, the full backing of McNair and enough first-season Coach of the Year votes to prove he actually might know what he's doing.

These are now O'Brien's Texans. His team. His era. His future to win or lose.

We'll see how great they can become. Without No. 80.