Only true believers gung-ho about QBs
This is the time of year when head football coaches could fool you into thinking almost every player is having a great offseason and will contribute in the fall.
It is when players are stronger and healthier than they have ever been, smarter than they ever were and shown tremendous progress from a year ago at this time.
It is when coaches believe and try to make you believe, too.
Bill O’Brien has had a little fun with local media about when he would name a starting quarter- back, but picking the right guy could be key to the season. Even a potentially superb defense will need more help than the Texans’ offense provided a year ago for the team to be better.
The unceasing speculation since the Texans re-signed free agent Ryan Mallett, who started two games last year before suffering a season-ending injury, then on the next day signed free agent Brian Hoyer, will have no bearing on who wins the job or when O’Brien makes his announcement.
O’Brien says he will go with the most consistent guy — I presume that would be better than choosing the most inconsistent
one — he just doesn’t know who that is yet.
It is curious that it has been six years since he first coached Hoyer in New England, four years since he first coached Mallett with the Patriots, and three months since he had general manager Rick Smith ink each of them to a contract, yet O’Brien doesn’t know which of the two he would prefer to lead his offense.
These two must be really close in playing ability. That would be a good thing if either had accomplished anything significant in the NFL.
The aforementioned starts with the Texans in 2014 are the only times Mallett has received extensive playing time.
It is one thing to sit on the bench behind Tom Brady but rather deflating to ride the pine for nine games while Ryan Fitzpatrick struggled to get O’Brien’s offense out of second gear.
When Mallett got his chance — his first start came against Hoyer and the Cleveland Browns in mid-November — he looked pretty good.
Mallett and Hoyer each completed 20 passes. Hoyer had a huge edge in incompletions with 30 to Mallett’s 10.
Despite the host of suspect quarterbacking the Texans have had in their 13 NFL seasons, only twice has a quarterback thrown 25 or more incompletions in a game. Hoyer did that twice last season with the Browns.
Missing the mark
Hoyer, who lost his backup job to Mallett in 2012 and is now with his fourth team, finished 32nd out of 33 qualified passers in completion percentage last year.
Of the 51 players who have thrown at least 600 passes since Hoyer joined the league as an undrafted free agent in 2009, only five have a worse completion percentage than he does.
Yet when it comes to the Texans’ quarterback competition, Hoyer is considered to be a more accurate passer than Mallett. Most observers at Texans OTAs and minicamp say Hoyer was sharper in the non-contact workouts.
No wonder O’Brien has yet to make a decision.
Mallett has a strong arm, a lot of confidence and “upside.”
Hoyer has experience, mostly bad experiences. But a lot of us, though not many quarterbacks, didn’t find our way until we were 30 years old, which Hoyer will turn a few days after the Texans lose to the Colts on Oct. 8. (That typo is not on me. My company-issue laptop has been around so long that it autocorrects Texans’ visits to Indianapolis.)
With exactly three months to go before the Texans kick off against Kansas City at NRG Stadium to begin their 14th NFL season, we can be fairly certain they are neither the best team in the NFL nor the worst.
Whether they will finish closer to first than last is an interesting debate considering how little informa--
tion we have to go on. A short list
The list of playoff teams that sent out a non-rookie quarterback, who entered training camp not knowing if he would be the starter and was starting for the first time with the organization, to start the first game isn’t long.
If you believe the Texans will join that group, you are a true believer.