Jake Locker: Did Young Quarterback Earn Start with Play Against Texans?

The Houston Texans routed the Tennessee Titans in Nashville today by the score of 41-7.

Now even though Texans running back Arian Foster amassed nearly 250 yards of total offense and Titans running back Chris Johnson was booed heavily by his home crowd, neither guy will fully steal the headlines in the ensuing papers.

The real story from this lopsided game was the benching of Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck for young rookie phenom Jake Locker.

Locker was the eighth overall pick in this past NFL Draft after four years with the Washington Huskies.

Locker was thrown into the game with 9:32 left in the fourth quarter after Matt Hasselbeck tossed his second interception of the game.

He completed his only pass of the day to Lavell Hawkins for 12 yards.

Tennessee made it clear in the offseason that they were going to give Locker his time to develop and learn under a seasoned veteran like Matt Hasselbeck. So I don't believe he'll be jumping into a starting role anytime soon.

Matt Hasselbeck has played very well in the early season for a Tennessee team who wasn't expected to do much this year in the first place. I expect him to maintain his job.

At the beginning of the year if you were to ask me if Locker was deserving of the starting role I would have said, "yeah, give the kid his shot," because the Titans weren't a good team in my mind.

Now, after seeing what Matt Hasselbeck has been able to accomplish, I say let Matt keep playing.

After all, Matt Hasselbeck isn't the problem in Tennessee.

See: Chris Johnson.