Brock Osweiler was a well-meaning experiment that ended in crushed hopes

The Houston Texans’ four-year, $72 million contract to Brock Osweiler has looked laughably bad this season. Osweiler has been inaccurate and uncomfortable. He was benched for backup Tom Savage who, even if he didn’t exactly light up the Jacksonville Jaguars, was certainly better than Osweiler on Sunday.

Osweiler went 6 for 11 for 48 yards and two interceptions. Savage went 23 for 36 for 260 yards. Savage also got superstar wideout DeAndre Hopkins involved, something Osweiler has been unable to do. Hopkins was targeted twice by Osweiler for an incompletion and the interception that sent Osweiler to the pine. After Savage entered the game in the second quarter, Hopkins caught eight passes for 87 yards to lead all pass catchers.

However, the most galling difference between the two quarterbacks is the paycheck. Savage is guaranteed $300,584 on his current contract. Osweiler is guaranteed $37 million no matter what he does. We may have seen his last snaps for the Texans, but he’ll be weighing on the salary cap for three more years.

None of this is Osweiler’s fault. You would have accepted a contract for a stupid amount of money, too. He didn’t mislead anyone. He was perfectly OK for the Broncos last season, and it should have been a bad sign for the Texans that the Broncos were then perfectly OK letting Osweiler go. Meanwhile, Trevor Siemian has been OK-plus in Denver, and Osweiler is in the midst of losing his job.

If somebody gives you a lot of money to do something, you go do it. And then if you struggle like Osweiler has, you handle it exactly like he did.

After the game, he owned every aspect of his performance. He called his second interception “inexcusable,” he empathized with head coach Bill O’Brien’s decision, then he found the upside and threw his whole self behind his team and teammates.

I love this football team. I love my teammates. I love this locker room. I love this coaching staff. You’re disappointed that you let them down, but Tom had a huge day. He’s been a great friend, a great teammate. Obviously, there’s disappointment, but there’s joy and there’s happiness because this football team won a football game that we needed to win.

Unfortunately, humble contrition does shit-all for the Texans. They’re leading their division but 8-6 isn’t where fans of a team that has Hopkins, Lamar Miller, a good offensive line, and a chock-talented defense feel it ought to be. They beat a 2-11 (now 2-12) team by one point, and they were down 13-0 when their franchise quarterback was replaced.

The idea that a team can win the Super Bowl is an infection. There is a gulf between being pretty good and what that is actually worth. People will applaud improvement, but only for so long. At some point, a few barely winning seasons and playoff losses start feeling pretty hollow, feeding expectations and the discontent that is almost always the symptom.

Winning starts to feel like a bad thing if it’s not often enough, and especially when there is one man that fans can so nakedly point at as the reason like Osweiler.

But Osweiler gave the Texans good times, too. There was a brief window of optimism when they were 2-0 and Osweiler was leading an inefficient-but-explosive offense. There were crippling turnovers, but then there was also Osweiler’s big arm being used in much different fashion that it had been in Denver, targeting Hopkins and rookie Will Fuller deep down field. Osweiler just turned 26. There was a feeling then that maybe he and Houston, in time, could have a fruitful relationship.

The overwhelming feeling now is that Osweiler simply isn’t an NFL starter — which may also be wrong, but there’s more evidence supporting that conclusion than not. But before we can continue criticizing the Texans, it should be said that other teams have taken big gambles and busted, too.

The Vikings entered the season as rightful Super Bowl contenders coming off a season in which they won the NFC North. They made a rash decision to trade first- and fourth-round picks to get Sam Bradford after Teddy Bridgewater was lost for the season, and though Bradford hasn’t been the reason for their back slide, they’re now missing key resources that could have been used to stitch themselves back up.

Head coach Mike Zimmer, whose work was lauded through one season and change, described a team facing a crisis of conscience after a blowout loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

“I want to find out who’s going to fight, because that was not a fighting performance,” he said. “They were more physical than us today, they played with more tenacity than we did. And that’s usually not how it goes.”

The Jaguars stayed by young, bubbly, inspiring head coach Gus Bradley through most of four losing seasons before firing him Sunday because they hoped that a young team would grow with him.

2016 was supposed to be the year that the Jags got over the hump and became playoff contenders again. And it’s impossible to deny that they do have talent.

Bradley never instilled an expectation to win, however, and that, as much as anything, is why he is looking for a new job after getting one of the nicest “See ya!” statements ever from owner Shad Khan.

This was the week of crushed optimism. The timing is about right, now that the season’s end game has begun. Teams will either be getting into the playoffs or beginning 2017 preparations early over the coming weeks, and for most the season will end in deep introspection.

Experimenting feels good. Everybody wants something new and exciting, especially in the NFL where teams often fall into a staid routine yo-yoing around .500. Even what looks like a bad decision at the moment still comes with the hope of the unknown. When nothing has gone wrong yet, there’s a chance that everything will go right, and our brains are very good at fudging the odds.

The Texans, Vikings, and Jaguars are facing an all-too-common reckoning of experiments gone wrong. It’s the acceptance that hurts, the bitter “Welp, you tried.” It’s those Christmas morning butterflies, the thrill that you might get anything but socks, then unwrapping a gift and staring, to your horror, at gray fuzzy footwear.