Friday’s news shocked the NFL fandom. The Houston Texans finally traded embattled quarterback Deshaun Watson to the Cleveland Browns despite the previous reporting saying the Browns were out of the running. Watson spent the 2020 season sitting on the bench all while being accused by 22 separate women of sexual misconduct.
The moral of trading for Watson dominated the national conversation for most of Friday and the weekend, as it should’ve. Frankly, it’s a sad day for the NFL for a player to have as much fanfare as Watson did the past two weeks.
So, instead of talking about how Watson will affect the Browns or how he will make them better, I’m going to talk about the team that traded him away — the Texans.
Houston has an opportunity to bide their time in a crowded AFC and rebuild its team the right way with all of the assets they acquired for Watson. Here’s the problem, the Texans have the same relationship with sound decision-making as Aaron Rodgers has with his family.
It’s non-existent.
Houston is one of the most weirdly run teams in the entire NFL. Here is just a brief summary of some of the reports that have come out since Bill O’Brien was fired in 2020.
Jack Easterby was described by former staff as a “cult” like figure who conned his way to an executive position, the team’s General Manager, Nick Caserio, was calling plays from the press box last season, the team tried to hire former quarterback Josh McCown as their head coach despite him having basically no coaching experience, and then finally, they promoted Lovie Smith from defensive coordinator to head coach even though they could’ve hired him last year, and they choose not to while also ignoring their own defense wasn’t even good last season.
Normal stuff from a very normal franchise.
What’s important to remember is those are just management problems. It doesn’t account for their bad draft classes, odd trades — a sixth-round pick for Blake Cashman makes zero sense — and their free agency approach of signing players to one-year deals like they are hitmen.
Despite all of that nonsense, the Texans find themselves with a legitimate opportunity to rebuild their team. There is no evidence to suggest they will be even remotely successful, but it is interesting to consider what they can do with first-round picks in 2022, 2023, and 2024 along with a 2023 third-rounder and a 2024 fourth-round selection.
Not only do the Texans have picks, but they have money too. Trading Watson created 24 million dollars in cap savings and the Texans have just more than 13 million dollars in cap space right now but that number balloons to a more than estimated 120 million dollar number next offseason, according to Spotrac.
The first step to any rebuild is to figure out what parts of the roster need an influx of new players. After looking at the Texans’ roster *squints* it looks like every position needs a lot of help.
That’s a slight exaggeration, but seriously, the only player on the Texans’ roster I’d consider to be a long-term franchise building block is left tackle Laremy Tunsil. If we narrow our search to the short-term we can rule out some positions based on money spent and things the team has said.
For instance, all reports are Houston will role with second-year quarterback Davis Mills in 2022. Mills flashed last season while completing 66.8% of his passes, throwing for 2,664 yards, 16 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions.