Tom Savage Flashes Deep Ball, but Fails to Inspire Confidence in Texans Debut

On a day where Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel flamed out before a live audience of the entire television world, a prevailing sentiment among Texans fans I observed went something like, "well, at least rookie quarterback Tom Savage didn't do that poorly."

Pushed into action by the broken leg that ended quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick's season, Savage took the reins of the Texans offense and provided fuel for both his promoters and his detractors. On the one hand, Savage looked completely confused by the offense at times. He ran the wrong way on a pair of running plays, mishandled a snap, mishandled a handoff to Arian Foster and generally read the field so slowly it made Fitzpatrick look like Philip Rivers. 

On the other hand, Savage also showed what he did not get much of a chance to unleash in the preseason: his deep ball. Savage had a pair of over-the-top completions to receivers DeVier Posey and DeAndre Hopkins, both bullets that landed on the mark. A third pass was on the money to Hopkins but held up just enough that a Colts safety was able to break it up. 

And then, just as Texans fans were starting to ponder their next two weeks watching Savage, a Colts defender dove into his knee on the penultimate Texans offensive snap of the game, and a hobbling Savage threw a lame duck interception to Vontae Davis to send the Colts to their kneeldowns and the division championship. The Texans signed Case Keenum from the Rams practice squad on Monday, per John McClain of the Houston Chronicle. Texans head coach Bill O'Brien has announced that Savage will miss the Baltimore game and could potentially be out longer than that, per FOX26's Mark Berman:

Keenum knows the offense from the preseason, which is about as good as the Texans are going to do as they head down to quarterback No. 5 on the depth chart. Plus, it gets Keenum Truthers a chance to believe in their local business again, which is some small consolation for them. 

Back to Savage: I thought the Chronicle's Stephanie Stradley made an astute point when talking about him yesterday on Twitter. The lack of offseason reps for the third quarterback may have played a part in how raw Savage looked. 

While it's too early to have a complete statistical breakdown, note that Savage had what Football Outsiders would define as a successful play on just 31 percent of his 22 dropbacks. It was clear that there were a lot of problems. Short accuracy was lacking, but because Savage was throwing behind his receivers I think his overall timing was just too slow at this point in his development.

Source: NFL Game Rewind

It's hard to project what to think of Savage going forward with just 22 dropbacks of information. Hopefully whatever leg injury he's diagnosed with doesn't sit him too long, because Savage is exactly the kind of player who needs a full season of OTAs. Developmental projects don't develop without reps, snaps and time on the practice field. 

As I said, I think there are plays for both the pro and the con camps to latch on to, and Savage's deep arm can be a difference-maker. 

Source: NFL Game Rewind

Ultimately, I don't think enough was shown to make me think the Texans have a clear-cut starter for next season. I also don't think we've seen enough to completely write the possibility off.

Given where the Texans are going to draft next season, barring the possibility of an improbable (though not impossible, as we saw with Teddy Bridgewater) draft slide for Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, it doesn't appear they'll be in position to draft a franchise quarterback. The Texans have made it abundantly clear to Ryan Mallett that they'd like him back next season, according to NFL.com's Ian Rapoport:

"

#Texans didn’t get to find out if Ryan Mallett is their franchise QB. But they did inform him today they want him back for 2015, source says

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) November 25, 2014"

I think perhaps the path of least resistance for the Texans will be walking into the season with a three-headed competition between Mallett, Savage and another mid-round rookie quarterback. Then the Texans give each one a fair shake and see where they are entering 2016. It's probably not what you want to hear if you're a Texans fan who just wants a franchise guy, but it's also better than the proven product of mediocrity that was Fitzpatrick. 

I am still skeptical that Savage will be good enough to be an NFL starter. (I'm also skeptical that Mallett will be good enough to be an NFL starter.) But by setting Savage and Mallett up for a competition, at least the Texans can say they are going with unproven commodities that could be worthwhile NFL starters.

My opinion is that it's better to window shop on unproven quarterbacks than to lock down with a quarterback like Fitzpatrick, who has nothing new to show you at this point. Mallett and Savage is not a quarterback committee with much promise in my opinion, but at least it has the potential of promise. 

Rivers McCown is the AFC South Lead Writer for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.