National Football League

Did Brock Osweiler just blame the Texans’ coaches for his bad fundamentals?

Published Jun. 15, 2017 12:01 p.m. ET

Cameron DaSilva

Brock Osweiler is with his third team in as many years as he continues to search for a home in the NFL. It looked like he’d be the Texans’ long-term answer at quarterback last offseason when he signed a massive free-agent contract, but they shipped him to the Browns back in March – sending Cleveland a second-round pick to do so.

He’s now competing with Cody Kessler and DeShone Kizer for the starting job, and by all accounts, he’s improved greatly. Coaches are raving about his game, he feels like he’s playing better, and becoming the starter is a real possibility.

Part of the reason for his improvements, he says, is because of the Browns’ focus on fundamentals. That wasn’t as apparent with the Texans, and Osweiler made that known on Wednesday.

“The best part is I’m getting coached hard on my fundamentals,” Osweiler said, via Ohio.com. “And I believe firmly that when your fundamentals and your feet are right as a quarterback, you’re going to make great decisions and you’re going to throw accurate footballs.

“I think that’s something that slid last season. I’m not going to go into great detail on that, but they did. My fundamentals slid, and because of that, you saw some poor decisions and some poor throws. If you go back to 2015, I feel like my fundamentals were pretty tight.”

So his fundamentals were good in Denver in 2015 and are solid this year in Cleveland, but they weren’t good last year in Houston? See the trend there? Yeah, it’s pretty clear Osweiler is pinning at least some of his regression on the Texans’ coaches, who apparently didn’t work on his fundamentals and footwork enough.

Osweiler did admit that he “didn’t do such a good job” last season when it came to protecting the ball as he did in 2015, and that’s squarely on himself. However, there seemed to be a disconnect between Osweiler and coach Bill O’Brien for much of the season with the two reportedly getting into an altercation in Week 17.

All Osweiler can do now is hope he can once again become a starter, be it with the Browns or another team.