The Texans are making a quarterback change after one week, sources told NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport Wednesday.
Ryan Mallett will prepare as the starting quarterback for this week’s game vs. the Panthers, Rapoport reported. Brian Hoyer, who’d won the job in a training camp competition after signing with the Texans in March, was benched after struggling in the Texans’ season-opening loss to the Chiefs.
Perhaps for strategic reasons or perhaps because he was simply seeing a nightmare quarterback scenario come true so soon, Texans coach Bill O’Brien said earlier this week he was not going to make a quarterback announcement.
“You’ll have to wait for the first play of the Carolina game to see,” O’Brien said.
Hoyer told reporters last Sunday he understood why O’Brien made the in-game change.
“It couldn’t have gone any worse,” Hoyer said.
Starting Sunday would mark quite a four-week turn for Mallett, who no-showed practice after he overslept the week Hoyer was named the starter. Cameras from Hard Knocks focused on that incident and O’Brien’s anger with Mallett in the following week’s episode.