2017 NFL mock draft: Houston Texans pick DeShone Kizer

Here’s a little look behind the curtain about how things work in the SB Nation NFL writers’ mock draft. Like a some type of movie villain I hound each of our 32 team sites to not only submit two rounds of draft picks for their teams, but I make them do it several days in advance.

What’s the point of telling you this when we have a pick coming up from the Houston Texans and our friends over at Battle Red Blog? Well, the premise of the Texans’ pick was all about the team potentially signing Tony Romo. Now that he’s retired and off to CBS, that premise was shot. Here’s what I was able to salvage from the write-up from Battle Red Blog’s Luke Beggs:

Beggs: DeShone Kizer is what the Texans hoped Brock Osweilier would be — a competent pocket passer whose deep ball accuracy can take advantage of the tremendous skill sets of Will Fuller and DeAndre Hopkins. The Texans need a quarterback that can throw accurately deep down the field, and that’s what Kizer brings. He may not operate well within a short passing game, but the ideal Texans’ offense doesn’t revolve around that trait. Bill O’Brien wants a vertical passing attack that leans heavily on the run game, but if the Texans cannot throw the ball deep, the offense just turns into the same horror show we’ve witnessed over the last two years.

The Texans do have issues on the offensive line that need to be addressed, but those aren’t going to give the team stability at the most important position in the game.

Analysis: Right, so before the Romo bits were edited out, Luke thought the best-case scenario for Kizer would be sitting behind Romo for a season. He also mentioned that anything would be better than Tom Savage starting for Houston. Obviously this is now an interesting development. Would Savage start, or would Kizer rocket past him on the depth chart? We’ll leave that up to Battle Red Blog to debate over the next few months because you can rest assured knowing that the Texans will draft a quarterback and face that exact quandary.

In our mock draft Houston is in quite a bind since Patrick Mahomes, Mitchell Trubisky, and Deshaun Watson are off the table. On draft night, who knows how it’s going to play out. But Houston needs to get one of those top four and hope for the best. If it’s Kizer, you have to like his size and ability to push the ball down the field. He’s not fully developed as a player, but there’s a lot of skill there. A coach like Bill O’Brien should be able to get the most out of it.

Our next pick of the day comes up at noon ET with Field Gulls making the pick for the Seattle Seahawks. You can probably guess what direction they go with the selection.