There aren’t a lot of teams who can match what the Denver Broncos are offering Brock Osweiler to stay and become their franchise quarterback, but it seems that the most serious of his suitors are the Houston Texans.
Osweiler wants to see what his market value is. There have been two different reports about what the Broncos have been offering Osweiler in order for him to stay: A three year deal worth $45 million and a three year deal worth $39 million. What’s true, what’s not? We’ll only know when he signs in Denver (and that’s a big if), but he sure is making the most of the rising salary cap and the shortage of quarterbacks in this league and on the market teams see as someone they can put the franchise in their hands for the near future.
One team that’s been looking for an answer for quite some time are the Houston Texans. The Matt Schaub era ended in an awful 2013 season, followed by a decent but not remarkable Ryan Fitzpatrick and last season, despite making the playoffs, things were pretty bad with Brian Hoyer (especially in the playoff game) and Ryan Mallett. T.J. Yates and Brandon Weeden also played for Houston last season and both of them won key games, but the Texans don’t want to go through another season of looking for the next guy down the depth chart each time a quarterback has a bad game.
But is Osweiler the answer? He might be. He played in 8 games, starting in 7, with the Broncos going 5-2 in his starts. He completed 61.8% of his passes, throwing 10 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. His passer rating of 86.4 and QBR of 48.78 could be better, and it’s worth mentioning that he played with the league’s best defense having protecting his back. He’s not extremely mobile and his 7.7% sack ratio isn’t too impressive. But he showed he can do well in the right system and didn’t need too many games picking it up. As far as he’s concerned, he’s done enough to become a starter, and get paid like one.
The Texans are willing to make a competitive offer, whatever that means. They do have over $41 million in cap space which gives them enough of a cushion to make the Osweiler signing while dealing with other things. It’s rare to see a player a team views as a franchise quarterback walk away, and while the Broncos may have their doubts about Osweiler which means outs in the contract and not too much guaranteed money, they do see him as their guy (hopefully) for the next few years, and won’t be giving him up on him easily, knowing that if he does slip away, it’s going to be difficult finding a suitable replacement.