Cook’s Top 5: Houston Texans Quarterbacks

The NFL’s newest franchise is still 19 years old, and still has a ranking of their Top 5 QBs thanks to Steve Cook!

The Houston Texans are the youngest franchise in the National Football League. It’s kind of surprising that the NFL hasn’t felt any need to expand since 2002, but 32 teams seems to work pretty well. Houston was left high & dry when the Oilers made the move to Tennessee, and unlike Cleveland, they didn’t get to keep those records.

Like most expansion teams, the Texans got off to a rough start. Things started to improve though, and the team made six playoff appearances during the 2010s. They trended downward in 2020 though, and there are questions about the team moving forward due to the coaching situation and the quarterback situation. Not so much the quality of the QB on the field as to…other things.

We’re not here to talk about that though, so here are the five best QBs in the brief history of the Houston Texans!

5. Brian Hoyer

Hoyer has had an interesting career bouncing to teams of varying quality. He’s had a couple of stints with the Patriots as Tom Brady’s backup. He finally got to be a starting quarterback with the Browns, and showed enough potential there to get a job with the Texns in 2015. This season saw four different starting QBs due to various injuries, but Hoyer had the best season of any of them, with 19 touchdowns & 7 interceptions in 9 games. Somehow they managed to make it to the playoffs with a 9-7 record, but the less said about Hoyer’s performance in that wild card game, the better.

4. T.J. Yates

(Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)

There’s a very good chance that Yates will be the least accomplished quarterback to make one of these lists. He started ten regular season games for the Texans, scattered over five seasons he spent with the club over a span of seven years. A perennial backup, Yates was one of the guys paraded around to franchises that didn’t want to sign Colin Kaepernick. He got a few chances in Houston when people got hurt, and he was…ok. A couple of games that were good, a couple that weren’t, and the rest just kinda there.

The reason I put him here has nothing to do with his regular season exploits. Yates was sent into duty at the end of 2011 due to injuries to Matt Schaub & Matt Leinart, and managed to steer the Texans into their first NFL playoff berth. They faced the Cincinnati Bengals in the wild card round, and since it was the Bengals, were able to win their first playoff game. The second game, against Baltimore, didn’t go so well, but T.J. Yates was the first Texans quarterback to win a playoff game. Hence, he makes the list.

3. David Carr

What happens when you feed a young quarterback to the wolves with no protection, no skill players of any value & expansion team-level resources? You get David Carr. Carr was the first pick in the 2002 NFL Draft, thought to have much potential to be one of the top players in the league. That didn’t happen. Carr set two records in his rookie season, neither he wanted to set. The 76 times Carr was sacked during the 2002 season still stands as a single-season league record. Carr also has the third spot on that list with 68 sacks in 2005, and also led the league in 2004 with 49 sacks. Carr’s 12 fumbles recovered in 2002 also still stands as a single-season league record. He led the league twice in fumbles, with 17 in 2005 & 16 in 2006.

Basically, the guy was beaten to a pulp. Carr’s widely considered one of the biggest busts in NFL Draft history, but how much of that is due to the situation he was thrown in to? Quite a bit, is my assessment. He did manage to lead the league in completion percentage in 2006, but that was the last season the Texans kept him around. Carr ranks this highly mostly because he actually managed to last five seasons as Texans QB1 through a barrage of abuse.

2. Matt Schaub

Schaub started getting hype when he served as Michael Vick’s backup in Atlanta. Houston heard that hype and made a trade for him during the 2007 off-season, intending for him to become their new starting QB after the departure of David Carr. He was an upgrade right away, as the Texans had their first 8-8 season in 2007 and their first winning season in 2009. His best season would come in 2009, when he led the league in passing yards with 4,770 yards and got his first of two Pro Bowl selections. The second would come in 2012, when Schaub helped the Texans win their first AFC South Championship.

Unfortunately, the wheels fell off in 2013. Schaub started the season fine with two comeback victories, but would fall into a streak of throwing pick-sixes. Four consecutive games with one of those, combined with an ankle injury, led to Schaub losing the job to Case Keenum. Schaub got the job back after Keenum got hurt, but did nothing in the last two games to swing momentum in his favor. He was traded to the Raiders in 2014, and would spend the rest of his career as a backup. Including ending his career with Atlanta. Schaub had a good run in Houston, but it seems most fans tend to remember the sour ending. He still holds most of the relevant Texans passing records, and might hold on to them depending on how long our next quarterback remains with the team.

1. Deshaun Watson

After winning a national championship at Clemson, Watson was the third quarterback drafted in the 2017 NFL Draft. He immediately got attention after entering the game during the Texans’ first game, and impressed people week after week. A torn ACL ended Watson’s rookie season, but he picked up where he left off in 2018. Watson’s been selected to three straight Pro Bowls, and led the league in passing with 4,823 yards in 2020, serving as the sole bright point of a miserable season in Houston. Prior to that, Watson’s two full seasons as starting quarterback saw the Texans win double digit games & make playoff appearances.

Things seemed to be going well. Then Watson wanted a trade. Shortly after that, a number of sexual assault allegations came his way. At this time, we don’t know where any of this is going, on or off the field.

So, for the second straight column, we’ve got somebody in the top slot that wants out of their situation. The one before that was Matthew Stafford, who was ejected from his situation. We live in interesting times.

Thanks for reading! Next time, we look at the illustrious quarterback history of the Colts!