2015 Houston Texans Free Agency News: Texans Sign Brian Hoyer

Shortly after Brian Hoyer arrived in Houston to investigate whether the Texans would in fact be the next franchise he'd call home, It's official now.

Hoyer agrees to 2-year deal of $10.5 million with $4.75 guaranteed, per @caplannfl. Same length as Mallett's, significantly more $. #Texans

— Tania Ganguli (@taniaganguli) March 11, 2015

With more starting experience than Ryan Mallett, Hoyer was able to secure more money than Mallett's two-year deal worth $7 million with only $1.75 million guaranteed.

On Monday of this week, your Houston Texans agreed to a new contract to retain quarterback Ryan Mallett.  Now that Hoyer is on board, a reunion of sorts has occurred.  These two signal-callers were previously behind Tom Brady in New England while learning their trade from coaches Bill O'Brien and George Godsey.

The Texans' upcoming organized team activities (OTAs) and Training Camp are sure to be interesting with these two battling for the starting role.  Early assumptions might be that it is Mallett's job to lose, but O'Brien is certainly going to ensure these two push each other constantly to get the most qualified leader on the field for 2015.

This might be a good time to revisit Brett Kollmann's previous evaluation of Mallett.  With very little to go on back in August, we had no idea how Mallett would look on the field when he got  his first start when the Texans played the Browns in 2014.  Mallett finished that game 20-30 passing for 211 yards and 2 touchdowns without the benefit of Arian Foster in the backfield.  As the opposing QB in that tilt, Hoyer finished 20-50 passing for 330 yards and 1 touchdown.  The Texans won 23-7, and Mallett looked every bit the confident commander of the offense.

Pro Football Focus reported that Mallett's average time per pass attempt that day was off the charts fast, averaging 2.06 seconds.

Bill O'Brien's post-game interview included these comments:

"I thought that his, kind of like what I was saying before, what I had seen in practice I saw in the game. The huddle command, the ability to get us into the right play at the line of scrimmage, his poise on the sideline, his communication with his teammates on the sideline.  I thought he was decisive for the most part in the passing game. I had him down for two poor decisions, and when you throw the ball thirty times and you only have two poor decisions, that’s not bad for a first start.  So those were the things that I had seen in practice and they were good to see in the game."

"That’s one thing that I had seen in practice. He understood the rhythm that we wanted to play in. He had performed that well in practice, so when we continually saw that week to week we knew that he was a guy that when he got into the game he would know how we wanted to play – up tempo, huddle tempo, in between tempo – he has a good grasp on those things."

Unfortunately, Mallett was injured going into the next game against the Bengals, in which he struggled to even hit the broadside of a barn while playing with a torn pectoral muscle.  He was placed on injured reserve to end his season with more questions than answers after one great game and one game in which he obviously tried to play through an injury.

This article was supposed to announce the signing of Brian Hoyer, and it ended up being all about Ryan Mallett.  Well, make no mistake about it--the dominant training camp story this year will be about which of these two guys will be announced as the starter for the Houston Texans in 2015.  Much like this post, I feel it will be "all about Mallett" in the end.

Let's get ready to rumble!