Ahead of Saturday’s wild card game between the Oakland Raiders and Houston Texans, one Raiders defender gave a brutally honest assessment of Brock Osweiler.
According to ESPN’s Britt McHenry, the anonymous player said Osweiler, “Stares at his targets, rarely makes all his reads, and when he does he holds the ball too long.”
It’s not a glowing report, but it is darn accurate.
Though Osweiler is a fifth-year pro, he regularly makes rookie mistakes and still doesn’t go through his progressions like you’d expect of a player who was paid a boatload of money to be Houston’s franchise passer. Of course, this is something that isn’t surprising to those of us who’ve said all along that the Texans made a grave error investing so much capital in an untested, unproven player who was a reach by Denver back in 2012 as a second-round pick out of Arizona State
This season, he’s completed just 59 percent of his passes (27th in the NFL) while throwing 15 touchdowns and 16 interceptions (fourth-worst in the NFL).
He is routinely inaccurate, oftentimes throwing well high and behind his receivers on routes most quarterbacks can nail with their eyes closed. His interception total is all the more startling considering Osweiler missed an entire game and played in only parts of two others after he was benched for Tom Savage.
The other quarterbacks in the NFL who threw more interceptions than Osweiler in 2016 are Philip Rivers, Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Opposing defensive backs are often all over balls he throws because he really does stare down his receivers. Oakland might truly have an upper hand in its upcoming playoff game against Houston, even coming in with a rookie quarterback, if it can force Osweiler into making the same mistakes he’s made all year.