NFL Rumors: Ryan Fitzpatrick expected to start for Houston Texans

After trading Matt Schaub to the Oakland Raiders, many expected the Houston Texans to make a big move for a quarterback in the offseason.

More from Houston Texans

After all, new Texans’ head coach Bill O’Brien coached Tom Brady with the New England Patriots. He also did a wonderful job of turning former work-on Matt McGloin into a solid college quarterback and posted a second consecutive winning season despite sanctions and scholarship restrictions in 2013 behind a true freshman quarterback, Christian Hackenberg, with the Penn State Nittany Lions.

There were rumors that O’Brien could take a quarterback with the first-overall pick or could pursue a trade for Brady’s current backup, Ryan Mallett.

Instead, the Texans signed journeyman quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and did not use a pick to select a quarterback until they took former Pittsburgh Panthers’ signal-caller with the 135th-overall selection in the fourth round.

It looks like Fitzpatrick will enter the season as the starter and O’Brien says he is completely comfortable with that.

“We really liked his intelligence,” O’Brien said via Brian T. Smith of The Houston Chronicle. “We liked the fact that he had played a bunch of football. … We felt what was best for the Houston Texans was to find a good fit at quarterback for our system. He was the guy that we thought fit that.”

“It’s about decision-making,” O’Brien said. “Not forcing the ball and understanding that you have a really good back out of the backfield in Foster that you can always check it down to. … We believe in our system. But at the end of the day, Ryan, he needs to go out there and make good decisions and make sure he is doing what is best for the team.”

Fitzpatrick has completed 1,555 of 2,599 passes for 16,790 yards with 106 touchdowns and 93 interceptions in his career.

Home/Houston Texans