A day after Tom Savage's agent, Neil Schwartz, called out the Houston Texans for benching his client in Week 1, the quarterback attempted to clear the air.
"I spoke to everybody on this team about it," Savage said Thursday after Houston's win over Cincinnati - in which he didn't play - according to Sarah Barshop of ESPN.
"I spoke to all the leaders, I spoke to coach, I spoke to Deshaun (Watson), (assistant coach) Pat (O'Hara), all those guys. I mean, it just is what it is. (Neil Schwartz) defended me. And the most important thing is I have this team's back. I will go to war with Bill (O'Brien) and this organization any day of the week."
Savage added that he knew Schwartz was going to defend him over the benching, but didn't know the exact nature of his agent's comments in advance.
"They told me they were going to defend me, and I said OK," Savage said. "I didn't really go through what they were going to say or anything like that. It was just one of those deals. I felt the need to talk to the team about it, because by any means, I do not want to be a distraction to this team. That's not my goal. I will be here, I will support this team."
In an interview, Schwartz had said the benching made no sense and defended his client's play in Week 1. Houston opted to pull Savage against the Jacksonville Jaguars after he'd managed only 62 yards passing and had lost a pair of fumbles. The Texans then gave Watson, a rookie, the start Thursday against the Cincinnati Bengals.
"Listen, we just won," Savage said. "The headline should be about (Watson), not about this bullcrap."
