In some quarterback competitions, there’s a favorite who has the inside track on the job and, as a result, takes more of the practice reps with the starters than other aspirants.
That’s not the way things are going to go in Houston, where the Texans have four quarterbacks in the mix for the job right now. Coach Bill O’Brien said that his goal is to keep the snaps with the first team and overall even for Ryan Fitzpatrick, Case Keenum, Tom Savage and T.J. Yates until one of them distances himself from the pack.
“I think initially you have to, in this part of the year, you have to make sure the reps are equal. Then you got to make sure that each guy gets a chance to rep with the starters, or the guys that are running with the first team,” O’Brien said, via the Houston Chronicle. “I think that’s important too. So we try to do that, try to make sure we get equal reps, then at some point, whether it’s two weeks from now, three weeks from now, two months from now when we get to training camp, we’ll make a determination on who gets the most reps to get them ready for the game, but we are not there right now. We got to continue to give these guys equal amount of reps and give them a shot.”
Given that description, it’s no surprise that O’Brien called the quarterback race “wide open” at this point in the proceedings. It’s a safe bet that it will remain that way into the summer, if only because splitting reps four-ways forces you to take a longer road to a final evaluation than you’d have with fewer contenders.