



In watching camp, you can completely see why they picked Tom Savage. If you didn't know any of these guys' stories, and you just were watching them throwing against air, skill wise, he just looks more like a starting NFL quarterback than the others. Nice mechanics. The ball comes out like a rope, even in bad windy conditions. He can make all the throws, and has the strongest arm I've seen in a Texans camp. (Yes, tallest Hobbit sort of thing to say). Obviously his size. Comes from a part of world that develops QBs. Nobody was recruiting him to be a safety, for example.





Hard to eval him from college because his college career was unorthodox and his line was pretty terrible last year, but there were moments you could see what they saw. Why he was a good value where they got him.





O'Brien's offense is very involved, so it's not just a question of physical skills. But whoever he drafted, he was going to have to pretty much rebuilt in the way he needed them to be built for a very mentally intensive offense. So there was never going to be a Let Johnny Be Johnny kind of quarterback pick.





So I think Tom Savage actually is the round peg in the round hole. The pre-draft view of him was that he could be a good quarterback if he went to a place with good quarterback coaching, and this might be the best place he could go. O'Brien needs a guy who can make all the throws.





Foster, I think, could fit in most systems. He blocks, has good vision, can catch the ball out of the backfield. He's mentioned that he likes the offense because he is going to be doing more pass catching. I am not sure that Foster will have the TD numbers that he had in the previous scheme just because the old OC had such a strong preference for the running TD if it could be done.





I asked J.J. Watt about the concern that under Crennel's defense, he is going to have fewer sacks. He wouldn't bite on that, and basically said, I don't care what people think and just watch. (Few players are talking much detail about anything they are doing, which I believe is part of the redoubled emphasis on team first, and less me me me talk. No way that J.J. Watt this year would talk about that 20 sack thing like last year even if he had it as a goal).





I think nationally, there's a view that Crennel is going to try to fit guys in spots they don't fit well in, and that more local people are saying that Crennel can be creative with his players to take advantage of their skills.





Will be interesting to see how quickly they can develop their front 7. The defensive line with the departure of Antonio Smith is very young. Usually young is tough on defensive linemen, because few can have the kind of immediate success that J.J. Watt had. It's a grown man position.





So as far as fair is concerned, like most everything, this is wait and see.





As for quarterback, I think what O'Brien said before the draft is what he meant. That the way they evaluated the quarterbacks wasn't just the big three. That each of the QB prospects had strengths and weaknesses, enough that there were a lot of good quarterbacks to choose from, depending on what you specifically valued.