Rex In the Top Ten?

I read this article by Clark Judge of CBS Sports, which I found by way of Windy City Gridiron (a fine site indeed), that ranks the top ten back up quarterbacks in the NFL. Some of the names I agreed with (Jeff Garcia, Jon Kitna, Tyler Thigpen, and Charlie Batch), some of them I'm not sold on (Sage Rosenfels, Matt Leinart, Todd Collins, Tarvaris Jackson (banking on Favre I see)), but the one I found most interesting was Rex Grossman.

Now anyone that reads this site with much regularity (if such people exist) know that I've been in Rex's corner on most of the discussions about his career. Many times I waffled between Rex and Kyle, mostly because I felt the best thing for the team would be for Rex to return the investment made on him. However, last year in relief of Kyle he was just plain horrible. I realize that he was rusty, and I realize he faced a tough defense against Tennessee, but a good back up quarterback would be a person who can relieve and perform adequately with minimal practice repititions, but Rex was just a pathetic 32 of 62 (51.6%), for 257 yards, a Jonathan Quinn like 4.1 yards per attempt, 2 tds, 2 ints, and an ugly 59.7 rating last year. That's...not good.

On the other hand, Rex did perform fairly well off the bench in a game in the Oakland game in 2007 and the Falcons game in 2005, going 16 of 30 (53.3%) for 235 yards, 1 tds, 1 int, a pretty good 7.8 ypa, with a 76.3 rating, and the Bears did win Both games (as well as the Detroit game this year making the Bears 4-1 in games in which Rex has relieved the starter). So that sort of clouds the picture. Is Rex a good option as your back up quarterback?

Well, I think that with the situation he's in, Rex is good for the Texans. I'm not high on Dan Orlovsky and never really have been. Rex has a legitimate shot of winning the back up job and that means backing up a fairly brittle player in Matt Schaub. Since Schaub has missed 10 starts over the last two years, its possible that Rex's job as a back up would actually entail multiple starts and enough practice reps to get him into the swing of things. In which case the very talented Houston offense should render him a starting caliber quarterback for as long as Schaub is out. Certainly Grossman to Andre Johnson is a potent throwgasm waiting to happen. So if you're looking for a guy to come in and save the team in the fourth quarter of a close game, I'd look elsewhere. But if you've got the time to let him take the wheels for a few games, then you could do a lot worse than Rex.