The Houston Texans may very well be close to handing over the starting quarterback job to rookie Deshaun Watson after he impressed in the preseason opener.
It might come as early as Week 1 or it could be delayed until the 2018 season. Either way, the writing is surely on the wall here. That’s until we ask current stopgap starter Tom Savage.
“My mindset is that this is my team. And I’m not going to let anyone take it,” Savage told ESPN.
Who Savage is talking about here really can’t be anyone other than Watson himself. He expanded on this a bit further.
“Now, I can’t control what happens. I can only control what I can do. And I said it before,” Savage continued. “It’s a pretty simple equation I think a lot of people overthink, especially in this league. If you go there and you win and you play well, they can’t pull you.”
The issue here is that Savage himself was mired in a quarterback battle with free agent bust Brock Osweiler last season before the team literally gave Cleveland a second-round pick to take him off its hands. Thus far, Watson has proven to be a much more capable quarterback than Osweiler.
It seems to be pretty obvious that Savage will start the season under center for the conference championship contenders. But should he fail, Watson will be waiting in line to “take” the team from Savage.
In Houston’s preseason opener, Savage completed 9-of-11 passes for 69 yards en route to leading the Texans to a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive. Replacing Savage under center, Watson completed 15-of-25 passes for 179 yards and added a rushing touchdown.
The Texans host the defending champion New England Patriots this week. It will be interesting to see how snaps are allocated between the two quarterbacks. That could tell us whether there really is a quarterback competition brewing in Texas.