If you thought the Houston Texans’ season couldn’t get any more dramatic, you thought wrong. Tuesday afternoon brought us reports that the team has parted ways with Ryan Mallett, releasing him following him missing the team’s charter flight home after a devastating 44-26 loss to the Miami Dolphins.
Head coach Bill O’Brien wanted to release Mallett over the weekend, but the team had no backup quarterbacks, so he was vetoed.
This was the same game that also likely put an end to Arian Foster‘s season, as he sustained an injury to his achilles tendon.
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Mallett didn’t play against Miami, but has played in five previous games this season, and started in four. Mallett was part of a huge quarterback competition in training camp to determine who the starter would be, and he was ultimately beat out by the older player Brian Hoyer.
Mallett has been criticized for being immature, and too young to be a starter, and missing a team flight only added to the madness. Mallett had to fly on a commercial plane back to Houston, and he used traffic as his excuse for missing the plane. Before missing that flight, Hoyer missed a mandatory team meeting on Saturday, and it has been recorded that he missed a practice shortly after it was announced that he would not be the starter of the team.
This is all embarrassing for Hoyer because–as we saw in the Hard Knocks exclusive video–O’Brien told Mallett he expected him to prepare as if he was the starter, play as if he was the starter, and be ready to start at any time. Missing practices on more than one occasion, and a team flight does not show that he’s in any way ready to be a starter, or on any NFL team for that matter. Some might even think he’s not prepared for any line of work.
So Hoyer is likely to keep the starting job for now, but who will be the backup? They have two other quarterbacks, but one is on injury reserve. It looks as if the Texans may look to a veteran quarterback that they can sign or trade for.
Next: Time to move on from Arian Foster
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