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Your Houston Texans are pretty set when it comes to the man under center. If they can manage to land the contract extension plane, they should remain that way for years to come. We’ve gone into great detail illustrating how Deshaun Watson is a special talent, the NFL’s Michael Jordan and the best quarterback in Texans history—and possibly Houston history.
But that doesn’t mean he won’t need a back-up from time to time to finish out games where the Texans are in no danger of losing or to come in in relief and as an extra practice arm to keep the second and third team offenses rolling along.
Every sensible team has three signal callers on the payroll this season, thanks to the risks of COVID-19. Bill O’Brien’s Houston Texans are no exception.
Tim Kelly on potentially keeping three quarterbacks, including Alex McGough, says Bill O'Brien and Jack Easterby 'have a plan for everything'
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) August 26, 2020
As of this writing, the Houston Texans’ officially official website is reporting Houston has Deshaun Watson, AJ McCarron, and Alex McGough on the roster. While McCarron should have a solid grip on the QB2 slot, McGough might just be a placeholder for a better option, as evidenced by the Texans bringing veteran competition in for a workout recently.
Texans are working out Javier Edwards, Edgar Cerenord, Spencer Drango, Ryan Grant, Jon Halapio, Cody Kessler, Deon Lacey and C.J. Prosise
— Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) August 26, 2020
While Kessler is far from Deshaun Watson, he’s been around the league long enough to have a solid grasp on clipboard holding and camp-arming. And he fits one of the Bill O’Brien prerequisites for free agent acquisition—he used to be a Cleveland Brown.
Over the course of his three-year NFL career, Kessler has participated in 17 games, started 12 of them, completed 224 of 349 passes (64.2%) for 2,215 yards, 8 touchdowns, 5 interceptions (with an INT rate of 1.4%), 110 first downs and a QB rating of 83.7. He’s averaged 130.3 yards per game and suffered 49 sacks (or 2.88 sacks per game he’s played).
Overall, those stats don’t look too shabby for a QB3. For the sake of comparison, McCarron has a 62.4% completion percentage, tossed 6 TDs versus 3 INTs (INT rate of 1.7%), and an 86.2 QB rating.
In a perfect world, signing Kessler would have no immediate impact on the Texans’ W-L record as Deshaun Watson would never leave the field unless Houston was up by more than 24 points late in the fourth quarter. But, this is 2020 and anything goes. Would you like to see the Texans bring Kessler aboard?