Texans Caught Between Rock and Hard Place with Mallett Situation

Just about everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong on Sunday for the Houston Texans.

The team was mercilessly obliterated by a recharged and revamped Miami Dolphins outfit, Arian Foster went down with a season-ending injury with only minutes left in an unwinnable game, and the PR team got a workout after it was revealed that backup quarterback Ryan Mallett missed the team charter back to Houston due to getting “caught in traffic.”

So now the Texans have a decision to make, and according to reports, the team has yet to make up its mind. Do you cut Mallett, who has displayed an extreme lack of professionalism since losing to starting job to Brian Hoyer in preseason, or keep him around knowing that there’s no better option available either on your team or the open market?

“[General manager Rick Smith and I are] dealing with it internally. We’re talking about it. We’re talking about our options,” said head coach Bill O’Brien.

“That’s something we’ll worry about internally,” echoed respected veteran left tackle Duane Brown.

This isn’t the first case of tardiness exhibited by Mallett this season. The whole nation witnessed his embarrassing excuse for missing a morning team practice on Hard Knocks, claiming that he “missed his alarm clock” and that it “wouldn’t happen again.”

Later, on a much more meaningful day, Mallett displayed terrible body language on the sidelines after being pulled from a game against the Indianapolis Colts. Mallett appeared distant and unresponsiveness to teammates after the decision, leading to the Texans sticking with Hoyer from that game on.

Alternatively, the possibility of cutting Mallett to set an example to the roster, the NFL and the fans carries with it some game day consequences. Third-string signal caller Tom Savage is on season-ending injured reserve and practice squad fourth-stringer Zac Dysert has yet to don a Texans uniform in 2015.

Frankly, the Texans may have no choice to keep Mallett on board, at least for the rest of this season. But to imagine that a player like this on a Bill Belichick, Mike Tomlin or Mike McCarthy-coached team would still have a job is impossible.

As for Mallett’s response to questions of his lateness? “It only happened twice.” That’s two times more than most coaches would accept, Ryan.