Backups’ backup might be playoff-bound
Cut by Cowboys, Weeden steps up in Texans’ victory
By the time Brandon Weeden left the visitors locker room at Lucas Oil Stadium late Sunday afternoon, the former minor league pitcher had a surefire way to quantify the impact of the biggest relief victory of his life.
The quarterback needed only to look at his phone.
Weeden, who came off the bench to help the Houston Texans win a game that puts them within striking range of the AFC South crown, glanced and noticed 95 text messages were waiting.
“I’ve got a bunch of texts from guys in Dallas. Quite a few guys,” Weeden said after Houston’s 1610 win against the Indianapolis Colts.
A month ago, he was dumped by the Dallas Cowboys for flopping off the bench as Tony Romo’s fill-in.
“It’s a weird league,” Weeden said. “It’s been a weird year.”
It also has been another weird season when it comes to the adventures of backup quarterbacks. The Texans, who have been hit hard by injuries, are among 15 teams this season that have started quarterbacks other than their Week 1 starter.
Weeden was the fourth quarterback to take a snap this season for Houston, entering the game just before halftime after fill-in starter T.J. Yates suffered what is feared to be a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Yates had been back in the lineup because Brian Hoyer is in the midst of the NFL’s concussion protocol for the second time this season.
Meanwhile, the Colts played the bulk of the game with 40year-old Matt Hasselbeck subbing for the franchise man, Andrew Luck. But with Hasselbeck playing with broken ribs, it seemed to be just a matter of time before journeyman Charlie Whitehurst would get into the action.
Hasselbeck, playing with a protective vest, got up slowly after a number of hits, including a shove from Jadeveon Clowney early on that didn’t seem too egregious on the scale of football violence. But Hasselbeck, whom teammates lauded afterward for his courage and toughness, was in a delicate state.
When Whitehurst finished a series in the fourth quarter after Hasselbeck was shaken up, it seemed fitting that a division that has been marked all season by ugly football might be determined by backups to the backups.
In Weeden’s case, though, his presence hardly guaranteed disaster.
Sure, he was winless as the starter for the Cowboys upon stepping into the lineup after Romo suffered a broken collarbone in Week 2. Dallas quickly traded for Matt Cassel, then pulled the plug completely on Weeden — only to learn that it also couldn’t win with Cassel, who was benched Saturday night against the New York Jets.
In any event, the Texans not only won with Weeden, they also won for the first time in franchise history in Indianapolis (ending a 0-for-13 streak) and did it by overcoming a 10-point deficit.
Weeden led the Texans (7-7) to a field goal on his first full drive and followed that by engineering a 10-play, 90-yard touchdown march. The 8-yard finisher to rookie Jaelen Strong came off a play-action toss, with Weeden demonstrating precise timing as he threw off his back foot.
It was more impressive when considering what the struggling Texans offense had been unable to achieve. Weeden, who completed 11 of 18 passes for 105 yards and didn’t turn the ball over, ended a Houston streak of 25 drives without a touchdown. No wonder Nate Washington, an 11th-year veteran, stood a few feet from Weeden’s locker stall extolling the virtues of the quarterback’s professionalism in a pinch. Regardless of what happened in Dallas, Weeden was the right man for Houston at the right time.
In practice last week, Weeden took one snap with the first-team offense. “A run play,” he noted.
Yet Weeden, a first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns in 2012 who’s now with his third NFL team after a failed baseball career, is also a case study for what a quarterback needs to do to get ready for emergency action. His reps in the offense were primarily of the mental variety. He ran the scout-team drills and otherwise watched Hoyer and Yates during practices and games to complement his playbook study. Look at him now. After Romo went down, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones insisted Weeden was a quarterback who could take a team to the playoffs.
Jones just didn’t expect that team would be the Texans.