Denver Broncos Edge Out Houston Texans in Lackluster Preseason Game

Saturday night the Denver Broncos beat the Houston Texans 14-10 at NRG Stadium in Houston.  The game was the second preseason game for both teams and many first-string players received limited playing time, or were completely held out of the game.

Defensively for the Texans, both J.J. Watt and Vince Wilfork, and DeMarcus Ware for the Broncos, sat out of Saturday's game.

Nothing was really cleared up in the Texans battle for starting quarterback.  Ryan Mallet started, but only went 5/7 passing for 23 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions.  Brian Hoyer didn't fare much better, going 7/11 passing for 52 yards and getting sacked twice.

After the game, and on Sunday, Texans head coach Bill O'Brien was noncommittal concerning a starting quarterback for the third preseason game. Telling HoustonTexans.com, O'Brien said, "When I’m comfortable about making that decision, I’ll make it. Again, it’s all about what’s best for the 2015 team."

“Again, it’ll come back to consistency, it’ll come back to game management, it’ll come back to situational football, who’s been the most consistent," O'Brien said. "It’s something that we’re studying, we’re really evaluating, again really at every position, the awareness of what’s going on in the game, how they handle different situations."

Meanwhile, Peyton Manning played in limited time for the Broncos, going 8/14 passing for 52 yards.  As Dave Logan noted on the Broncos Radio Network, on SportsRadio 1340 The Fan, all but one of Manning's completions were to Owen Daniels or Demaryius Thomas.

Two holding penalties hurt the Broncos chances of scoring a touchdown in the first quarter. "Obviously you want to be able to overcome them when you’re only going to play four possessions," Manning told DenverBroncos.com. "Sometimes when you have a drop, a missed throw or a penalty – you overcome those either on that drive or the next drive and didn’t really get a chance to overcome any of those but certainly those are things that you want to eliminate and I don’t see those things being a constant for us this year. I think we’ll do a good job in that category."

Manning's backup Brock Osweiler led the Broncos on a touchdown scoring drive in the second quarter with a 57 yard touchdown pass to Andre Caldwell. Osweiler received significant playing time, going 7/16 passing for 121 yards with one touchdown and one interception.

The Broncos managed 383 yards of total offense, but only went 6/14 on 3rd Down Conversions and 0/1 on 4th Down Conversions.

The Texans next preseason game is August 30 at New Orleans.  Meanwhile, the Broncos host the 49ers on August 29.  Broncos Radio Network pregame starts at 6:05pm with kickoff at 8:05pm on SportsRadio 1340 The Fan