NFL Week 2 Jaguars vs. Texans: Gardner Minshew era begins for Jacksonville

In Week 1 of this NFL season, Arizona's Kyler Murray, the No. 1 overall pick and former Heisman Trophy winner from Oklahoma, was the only rookie quarterback to start. Murray will be joined by a second rookie signal-caller on Sunday in Week 2 and it's surely a rookie that no one would have projected to start this early if at all in 2019: Jacksonville's Gardner Minshew. The Jaguars are 8.5-point underdogs at the Houston Texans. Kickoff at NRG Stadium is 1 p.m. ET on CBS.

Few teams had a worse Week 1 than the Jaguars as they were blown out 40-26 at home by Kansas City and lost starting quarterback Nick Foles to a broken collarbone. Foles, the former Super Bowl MVP with the Eagles, got a four-year, $88 million free-agent contract this offseason with $50 million guaranteed to solve a long-running quarterback problem in Jacksonville. Foles had surgery and has been placed on injured reserve; he wouldn't be eligible to return until Week 11 if he even does this year.

Maybe the Jaguars have found something in Minshew, the former Washington State and East Carolina quarterback. He was a sixth-round pick in this year's draft – Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick – and thus not even a lock to make the team. However, Minshew showed well in relief of Foles vs. the Chiefs in going 22-for-25 for 275 yards, two touchdowns and a pick. Minshew was the first rookie quarterback in the past 40 years to complete his first 13 NFL passes and his completion percentage of 88.9 was the highest in NFL history for any QB making his debut with at least 25 pass attempts. Hey, maybe Foles never gets his job back!

Minshew will face an angry Texans bunch as they had victory stolen from them in the final seconds Monday night by Drew Brees in New Orleans. The Texans are a lot better defensively than the Chiefs – Gardner, meet J.J. Watt. – although that unit struggled against the pass against Brees in allowing 362 yards through the air with just one sack.

The Jaguars have won just two of their past 16 AFC South road games and were swept by Houston in 2018. Jacksonville is 5-2-1 ATS in its past eight at NRG Stadium, however. SportsLine's game forecast projects a 25-15 Texans win.

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