Brian Hoyer has won the quarterback competition for the Houston Texans starting position. Of all possible scenarios for Houston, this is probably the worst coming true.
Had Mallett won the job then they could have at least pointed to the upside and the relative inexperience — the fact that he hasn’t yet conclusively proved he has no business starting in the NFL. The same is sadly not true for Hoyer, who proved that in spectacular fashion last season in Cleveland.
The Browns under Kyle Shanahan had one of the most quarterback-friendly systems in the league, not to mention some of the best pass-protection, at least until center Alex Mack went down with an injury. Hoyer’s role was simply to take advantage of the huge plays that were gifted to him on a plate and not simply lose games all by himself.
He failed at this role badly enough that the Browns were forced to throw Johnny Manziel to the wolves, something they knew at the time was a mistake but felt compelled to do because Hoyer had played himself to the bench. Only Blake Bortles, Derek Carr, Kyle Orton and Geno Smith had a worse grade than Hoyer last season (and none had the friendly offense that he did). Hoyer could only complete 55.5 percent of his passes, and despite play-action opening up huge, relatively simple passes for him to complete, could manage a passer rating of just 72.4 on those plays. Russell Wilson by comparison had a passer rating of 152.1 off of play-action.
Brian Hoyer may have won the quarterback competition on Houston, but there is a very real possibility that the loser was not Ryan Mallett (or Tom Savage); it was the Houston Texans.
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