The question never made sense.

Why was Ryan Mallett still wearing a Texans uniform Sunday, when the troubled quarterback had clearly broken multiple team rules and laughed in the face of coach Bill O'Brien's strict character guidelines?

Because the answer still doesn't make sense two days later.

O'Brien wanted - and tried - to cut Mallett before the Texans ever took the field during a 44-26 blowout defeat to the Dolphins, said sources with direct knowledge of the situation who weren't authorized to speak publicly. But the second-year leader – partly hired by owner Bob McNair for his fierce personality and high standards of personal accountability – was overruled by longtime general manager Rick Smith.

O'Brien lost the personnel battle before his team was again humiliated, via a 41-0 halftime deficit to Miami. Smith won the front-office decision that preceded the emasculating embarrassment at Sun Life Stadium. And the increasingly divided Texans already have a power conflict at the top tier of the organization, less than two years after O'Brien was supposed to lift the franchise up from the darkness of 2-14 in 2013.

"We're talking about all those options," O'Brien said Monday at NRG Stadium, when asked what the Texans plan to do with Mallett, who missed a chartered flight and then blamed Houston's nonexistent Saturday traffic for not flying with his team to the game.

The only option that mattered was privately discussed the same day that O'Brien realized a quarterback he surprisingly named the starter in Week 2 had publicly let the Texans down again.

If O'Brien – who made his team-first name by reuniting a shattered Penn State football program -- had his way, Mallett would've never joined the team in Miami. But Smith continues to wield a powerful hand over the organization 10 years after he became McNair's second GM, despite the fact that the Texans have only won two wild-card playoff games during his tenure and are just 13-26 in the last three seasons.

Smith pushed to keep Mallett because the GM believed the team needed a capable backup for Brian Hoyer against the Dolphins. The Texans, then 2-4, were entering a critical swing game that could either push them within sight of .500 entering a bye week or nearly end their season before the midway point of a year that was supposed to build on O'Brien's 9-7 rookie run.

With Mallett still in uniform and standing on the sideline in defiance of O'Brien's desire, the Texans barely had a pulse. They were blasted into a 21-0 hole with 3 minutes, 3 seconds left in the first quarter. They gave up 35 points to Miami before Hoyer threw for the Texans' initial first down. They were never alive in a contest that was supposed to define the first half of their season and showed no heart for a coach whose fiery, all-for-one style directly inspired their 2014 resurgence.

It was the worst half of lifeless football I've ever seen with my own eyes. It also made no sense, considering what was at stake and the fact that O'Brien's squad had been shredded by Atlanta – 42-0 Falcons in the third quarter – just three games prior.

Did keeping Mallett in Miami create the biggest disaster of O'Brien's NFL head-coaching career? That's a stretch.

Did allowing lazy No. 15 to remain in uniform undercut everything that O'Brien had publicly stood for since Jan. 3, 2014, when he was hired to be the hard answer to the perceived softness that set up Gary Kubiak's sudden demise? Without question.

Which leads to even bigger, more damning ones for a highly disappointing team that hasn't been right since "Hard Knocks" started rolling film -- a decision driven by McNair and also in opposition of O'Brien's desire for control.

What are J.J. Watt, DeAndre Hopkins and every other truly hardworking Texan supposed to think when Mallett gets another free pass, even for a few days?

Who's really directing the Texans: A GM that McNair has stood by for a decade or a coach who's supposed to have final say over the team's 53-man roster?

And how can McNair – increasingly hands off and distant 14 years into his ownership – tolerate a growing power divide while his franchise is no closer to being a Super Bowl contender than it was during the peak of Kubiak's run?

That mirage endured for all of one win-less offseason, by the way.

If you read between O'Brien's few, tense words about Mallett on Monday, it appeared the Texans could soon make the decision the coach wanted to make Saturday, after the selfish fifth-year QB let himself down again.

But this is bigger than a stupid alarm clock, blatantly pouting on national TV and flying solo in the face of a united 53.

If you look past Mallett's personal flaws, you'll see the current failure of the Texans. All talk. No action. No idea who they are, what they want to become or who's calling the crucial shots that matter for another one of McNair's losing teams.

brian.smith@chron.com

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