Houston Texans: Fans should get ready to see a lot of Jordan Ta’amu
Houston Texans quarterback A.J. McCarron has suffered a thumb injury and could reportedly miss the preseason. Jordan Ta’amu has been signed. What to expect?
The Houston Texans will take on the Green Packers tonight at Lambeau Field in their first preseason action of the season! Finally, after going through the year with seeing our favorite players out on the gridiron, this is now going to be a reality!
The position battles are strong at the moment and it will be interesting to see the combination of players that the offensive line will have this season. This unit is the most worrisome out of all on this team and it’s the most important that they improve because Deshaun Watson deserves quality protection.
Tytus Howard looks like he’s ready to go as a rookie this season and they may throw him into the fire as a starter. It doesn’t look like he needs to be on the bench to develop and that he’ll just be learning on the fly.
I expected this out of Howard because they thought so highly of him to draft him in the first round and it looks like he’s living up to the hype. We’ll just have to keep an eye on his pass protection and how many pressures that he will allow tonight. Nothing much got past him back in college so at least he has that going for him.
But anyway, another position of concern right now is the backup quarterback position. A.J. McCarron recently suffered a thumb injury in practice this week and could miss all of the preseason while he’s on the mend.
With Joe Webb being the only other quarterback on the roster, the Houston Texans have signed undrafted free agent Jordan Ta’amu.
The need of another QB is evident as it’s not expected for Watson to get in multiple reps until later on in the preseason. I doubt that he plays more than a couple of series tonight so the backup quarterback position is important.
I thought they were going to go the veteran route and sign either Josh Johnson or Brandon Weeden for the short-term but they’ve turned to Ta’amu to fill a desperately-needed slot.
Ta’amu was signed at rookie minicamp on a tryout basis so he does have familiarity with the offensive system Bill O’Brien and Tim Kelly have in place.
The 6-foot-3, 221-pound quarterback will be leaned on heavily this preseason to help the Houston Texans out in the roster pinch and this will be his opportunity to shine so that he finds his way into a regular gig in the NFL.
Ta’amu hails from Hawaii to where he has the Offensive Player of the Year for Division II football but reportedly did not get any offers to FBS schools.
He went the JUCO route and morphed into a reliable starter for New Mexico Military Institute his
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first two seasons of his career, where he passed for more than 3,000 yards and 32 touchdowns and rushed for 328 yards and seven touchdowns. This got him the Southwest Junior College Football Conference Player of the Year honors promoting him to Ole Miss for his junior year.
He wasn’t expected to start in Oxford but he went on doing so in the final five games of 2017 and then started all 12 games in 2018.
He finished up passing 3,918 yards, 19 touchdowns to eight interceptions while rushing for 342
yards and six TD’s off 116 attempts last season. He also completed 63.6 percent of his passes.
What does this mean?
The Houston Texans have a dual-threat QB that will be able to do some of the things that Watson can in this offense. Ta’amu can run the 40-yard dash in 4.77 seconds so he’s quite fast for a guy that will be under center. He may not be quite ready for the pro level just yet but he’s capable of leading this team through these preseason games and he may impress enough to land a roster spot either here or elsewhere.
I do like this move rather than picking up a veteran so I’m excited to see what happens next.
The kickoff for tonight’s tilt will be at 7 p.m. — it will be televised on ABC13, broadcast on SportsRadio 610 AM/100.3 FM (KILT) and Mega 101 FM (KLOL) in Spanish.