Texans QBs have solid preseason debut

The trio of Texans quarterbacks, Brian Hoyer, Ryan Mallett, and Tom Savage, all had a solid debut Saturday night against the San Francisco 49ers.

“I have to watch the tape, but I thought those guys went out there and operated the offense pretty well,” head coach Bill O’Brien said after the Texans 23-10 win in the preseason opener.

Brian Hoyer threw a touchdown pass to Cecil Shorts III on the opening drive and added a successful two-point conversion to DeAndre Hopkins. Ryan Mallett finished the rest of the first half and completed 10-of-11 passes for 90 yards. Second-year quarterback Tom Savage added the second touchdown of the day, a 10-yard pass to rookie Jaelen Strong in the third quarter. Savage was 8-for-14 for 97 yards and the score. 

It was a record day for the quarterback group.

“I think all three of us have had good training camps so that kind of translates over onto the field,” Hoyer said. “There’s been some good and some bad so we are learning from our mistakes and will keep doing the things we do well to improve our play.”

O’Brien sees progress in the Texans red zone offense but wants to see improvement there and specifically in goal-line offense next week. On Mallett’s first series, the Texans were unable to score from the San Francisco one-yard line despite five attempts by four different backs:Alfred Blue, Jay Prosch, Kenny Hilliard, and Jonathan Grimes.

“We’ll have to look at it,” O’Brien said. “We were in some big people groupings down there, and wer were in some smaller groupings. We’ll have to look at it. Give San Francisco credit. They stopped us right there. In the end, we won the game, which was good, but we have to correct that part of what happened tonight, no doubt about it.”

Ryan Mallett will start on Saturday against Denver in the Texans second preseason game.