Texan quarterback situation: Culley’s decision on the QB is unprecedented

Seventy-two hours to boot …

• Jeans coach David Culley wasn’t exactly surprised that no one made the proclamation he made Monday, naming Tyrod Taylor his starting quarterback for Sunday’s opening game against the Jags. And it’s fair to assume that if Deshaun Watson isn’t the owner (and, again, no one thought he’d be out of camp), he won’t be the backup either, as Davis Mills is likely to dress like number 2. and Watson probably inactive. Which means we’re now entering the next phase of this retired saga, and this is the part where the team has real games to prepare for and a real starting quarterback to prepare for. Will Watson’s presence be a problem? Well, it’s not entirely unpublished. In 2015, during the preseason, Washington coach Jay Gruden and GM Scot McCloughan fired Robert Griffin III as the team’s starter and went to Kirk Cousins — a decision that, in previous months , had become an increasingly obvious decision to make. The problem was that Washington had guaranteed Griffin’s salary for that fall and had exercised a $ 16.2 million guaranteed injury option for 2016, which Washington could only get out of paying if Griffin managed to keep him healthy throughout the year. year. So Gruden made Colt McCoy his backup and Griffin a dormant weekly game day. And while the circumstance wasn’t exactly ideal, Cousins ended up thriving and that Washington team won the NFC East. How they made it work (remember, Griffin was a star in DC early in his career)? I asked a couple of guys who were there, and what they told me was that Griffin was smart enough to find out that what would be best for his future would be to leave people with the best possible impression of him. . There was also a mutual interest in Griffin staying healthy, and a strong young coordinator named Sean McVay there to help navigate the discomfort. So could Nick Caserio and David Culley make Watson’s situation work in a similar way? There are a couple of key differences. One, Watson has a huge long-term contract. Two, where both sides of the Washington situation knew that the year would end with the release of Griffin, he will probably end, at some point, with a trade. Three, Griffin’s relationship with the team owner in Washington was miles better than Watson’s with the Houston owner. And four, and most notably, is the legal situation linked to this. So I don’t know how weird all of this will be for the Texans and Watson. But we are about to find out.

• You’ll see my awards on the site in a couple of days, but for now, I thought something would happen that I unearthed that I found fascinating, that relates to the Novell Offensive of the Year award. On only nine occasions since 1971 (all of which have happened over the past 17 seasons), quarterbacks have earned that honor. And in an astonishing six of those cases, the team he played as a quarterback ranked in the top 4 of the league in quick offense. A seventh of those teams placed 10th, with two extreme values Sam Bradford and the 2010 Rams (25th) and Justin Herbert and last year’s Chargers (18th), both teams finishing 7-9 and out of the playoffs. So what is there to get out of this? The most common is that the path to early success of a novice quarterback has less resilience. If a team runs the ball well and plays a good defense, the quarterback will be playing behind less and out of the lower controlled distance. So you want to know how Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Justin Fields and Mac Jones will do the first year? Guys like James Robinson, Michael Carter, Raheem Mostert, David Montgomery and Damien Harris will have a helping hand.

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• It’s hard to see the situations of TJ Watt and Stephon Gilmore — which have been set up as virtual retentions — and not think that things should never have gotten that far. In Watt’s case, the Steelers have had two years to find a common ground with a player who won 10 Defensive Player of the Year votes in 2019. At the time, Pittsburgh knew he would have gotten a big slam by taking Watt. at the end of the first round in 2017, and yet the Steelers waited and let Watt gather more leverage and more inflation to gain strength, all because of an internal rule that they don’t do new operations (a exception of the quarterback) for players with two years of existence left. Now, then, it will be expensive and Watt is not in a position to be at his best, with the team keeping him at camp. And in the case of Gilmore, the Patriots and everyone else involved knew that Gilmore would not play $ 7 million this year from the time they moved $ 4 million into their 2021 to 2020 contract last September. And yet they spent $ 160 million on guaranteed money and didn’t address it, putting Gilmore in a position where he had to protect himself by returning from a torn quad. That, of course, kept the team at PUP, which leaves him out for at least six weeks and probably more (meaning he won’t really play all of 2021 for $ 7 million). For me, both cases were viable. And they can often come up with a simple question: do you want to win the deal or do you want the player? I’m not baffled by how these teams responded, they both hope to fight in 2021 (which gets worse).

• While we have contracts: Dallas Goedert presents its own contractual situation Monday highlights the interesting spot the Eagles are at. Both Goedert and Zach Ertz organized excellent training camps, and both boys settled into contract years. And on paper, I would think it would be relatively easy to decide to pay the younger Goedert and let Ertz walk. What happens is that Ertz is only four years younger than Goedert and the production level of the two is not close (Ertz has posted five seasons of 74 catches or more, Goedert has never had one with more than 58). Added to this is the rising cost of tight ends and guys like Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski have produced up to the age of 30 (and Jimmy Graham has played forever), and you can see where things aren’t as easy as they were a few. a few months ago, when Ertz wanted to leave and there was a real concern for his future after a very low 2020.

• Hard to see a couple of really good Big Ten players and potential professionals (Ronnie Bell, Michigan WR, and Mohamed Ibrahim, Minnesota RB), who went down the year over the weekend. The news seems to be better for the possible No. 1 overall pick / Kayvon Thibodeaux, an Oregon driver, who was in a standing boot after injuring his ankle against Fresno State. Ducks coach Mario Cristobal said Thibodeaux improved and described him as “day to day.”

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