Tom Savage wasn’t apologizing, but he did make sure to have a conversation with his Texans bosses and teammates about his agent’s recent remarks.
After agent Neil Schwartz appeared on PFT Live to rip the Texans for benching his client at halftime of last week’s opener and replacing him with rookie Deshaun Watson, Savage said he thought it was important to clear the air with coach Bill O’Brien and others.
“My agent, he defended his client,” Savage said, via Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle. “We’re a family over there in that firm. I spoke to everybody on this team about it. I did. I spoke to all the leaders, I spoke to coach, I spoke to Deshaun, [assistant] Pat [O’Hara], all those guys. It is what it is. He defended me. And the most important thing is I have this team’s back. I will go to war with Bill and this organization any day of the week. He was upset about it. That’s how this business is.”
Savage said he was aware the defense was coming, but talked to the team because: “I do not want to be a distraction to this team.”
And after Watson led the Texans to a win over the Bengals, Savage said he hoped the topic was over.
“I sure hope so,” he said. “Listen, we just won. The headline should be about No. 4, not about this bullcrap.”
While Savage was trying to be polite, he also wasn’t apologizing. And even though the ascension of Watson was inevitable from the moment they traded next year’s first-rounder to get him, the Texans’ handling of this was clumsy, at best. The spent the offseason insisting Savage was their starter, and changed their minds after 30 minutes. If they were going to make such a switch, they’d have been better off making it in May, and letting Watson have the lion’s share of practice time to get ready for the job they gave him anyway.