Thanks for the thoughtful response. Glad we could have some legitimate civil dialogue over the issue.
Nah Im out on Tua. Just would add more confusion to the clusterfk at the position currently. I'd rather take on some defensive studs and then shoot for Howell or Rattler in the draft next year. Im not old on Davis Mills - yet, but what scares me is that Caserio and Culley COULD try to convince themselves Davis is the guy and then bypass better prospects in those hopes and just wasting time. Im hoping Mills gets plenty of action to be able to conclude one way or the other.
Last year he was horrendous (his 52.5 QBR ranked him 26 out of 33 QBs). To be expected I guess to some extent coming off injury and all that. This preseason he has looked good at times. I like his accuracy and decision making, but he had a horrible throw against the Bears that resulted in an INT in the red zone and then he had a great game against the Falcons backups. I just dont see enough progress from last year to merit him as a feature piece in a trade FOR US at least with who we have on staff already. I'd almost rather just throw Davis Mills out there game 1 and see what you have (I know it wont happen with Tyrod). If we had a bunch of nothing at QB then I might be more inclined, but I see Tua and Mills as equals at this point in time.
Would definitely take a hard look at Tua if he’s being offered. Great intangibles and from what I’ve seen his rookie season he’s pretty good at going through his progressions. Not 100% sold on him yet but a lot of upside there, question is will he be able to do anything surrounded by a dumpster fire roster.
Expect there to be a deal within 48 hours. Expect it to be extremely underwhelming. More than the Harden deal. I'm talking like Watson for a first and a second. Maybe. Hope I'm wrong. Just speculation on my part.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/08/30/mmqb-deshaun-watson-trade-rumors-cutdown-day-sirianni-saleh The needle may have moved on public discussion of a potential Deshaun Watson trade over the weekend, but the feet of the one man holding the cards have remained planted. And I’m not sure anyone should expect Nick Caserio to move from his stance soon. Before we go any further here, it’s important to remind everyone that Watson’s situation, as it stands right now, encompasses things far more serious than what color helmet he’ll be wearing next time he plays. There are 22 lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct pending, and 10 of the 22 plaintiffs have filed criminal complaints against the quarterback. That’s why getting what, in January, was fair market value has been difficult for the Texans and their first-year general manager. On the field, Watson, without question, would make the Dolphins, Panthers, Broncos or Eagles better. But if you trade for Watson now, he instantly becomes the face of your franchise, and it’s difficult to predict with any level of certainty how the legal situation will play out. Any general manager or head coach would be putting his own neck on the line in going to his owner asking for permission to make such a trade. That brings us back to Caserio. With all due respect to J.J. Watt, whatever Caserio does here will be the first franchise-shifting move he makes in a job he worked two decades to get. If he takes less, and Watson is cleared legally in a couple of months, then he’s traded away a 25-year-old franchise quarterback with five years left on his contract at a cut rate. So, then, what’s the rush to move Watson? Caserio doesn’t owe Watson anything, nor does he owe other NFL teams the chance to acquire him. The argument that it’ll make things awkward for David Culley and the coaches, or Tyrod Taylor and the quarterbacks, is fair. But those guys have already rode that out for six weeks. The cost for hanging on to Watson for the season would be $10.54 million. The cost for holding on to him past Tuesday would be the 53rd player on the roster. Bottom line, given Caserio is in his first year as a GM, and given what the haul for Watson would’ve been in January or February, that cost is small in comparison to what a trade should bring for a player like this. On Saturday, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio did a nice job of breaking down the four options the Texans have Tuesday, when rosters across the NFL reduce to 53. One, they could tell him it’s time to play; two, they could put him on IR; three, they could keep him on ice, and essentially go into the year with 52 players; four, they could trade him. The cutdown is a big reason why the Watson situation bubbled back up to the top of the news cycle the last couple of days, and why it’ll remain there until Tuesday afternoon’s deadline for the Texans to check one of those four boxes. And looking forward to that deadline, and trying to project what might happen, requires looking back at why we are where we are. • I believe the root of the issue here for Watson remains with ownership, and specifically that Cal McNair didn’t follow through on his promise to loop Watson into the process of hiring Caserio, after involving him in prior stages of vetting coach and GM candidates. Obviously, a lot has happened since then, and not for the better, and the result is an irrevocably broken relationship between a team owner and his team’s quarterback. • Caserio, to my knowledge, was earnest in his desire to hold on to Watson earlier in the offseason—which I can say was reflected in the way the Texans rebuffed interest back then from other teams. I can also say through that period, and well into March, packages involving three first-round picks (and then some) were discussed by interested teams. The Texans, at the time, were unmoved. • In mid-March, the first three lawsuits were filed by attorney Tony Buzbee. By the end of the month, the number grew to 21. On April 2, a police investigation was launched. (Watson has denied any wrongdoing.) And while the language the Texans were using publicly had shifted—from “he’s our quarterback” to “we’ll do what’s best for the team”—by then, the market for Watson had changed dramatically. • Since, some teams I talked to that were interested at the time, and some that remain interested now, have only been willing to entertain a deal that gives them protections by making the draft-pick compensation conditional (with conditions linked to his availability to play). I haven’t gotten any indication that the Texans are willing to tie their return to those sorts of contingencies. • On Saturday, Yahoo’s Charles Robinson reported that the Texans’ price is three first-rounders and a pair of second-rounders. What I’ve heard is vaguer than that—three first-round picks as a starting point, with additional compensation on top of that—but does match up with Robinson’s information. • And to that “additional compensation,” I wouldn’t assume that another team’s young quarterback (e.g. Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa, Carolina’s Sam Darnold or Philly’s Jalen Hurts) would necessarily be seen as an asset by Houston in a Watson trade. I think in at least some of those cases, and maybe all of them, the Texans would much prefer additional picks to the quarterbacks. • On one hand, I don’t think Watson’s preference being Miami gives the Dolphins any sort of advantage, or leverage, in working to land the quarterback. On the other, Watson does have some control over this, via the no-trade clause he secured in the four-year, $156 million extension he signed less than a year ago. So looking at that landscape, if you’re Caserio, what do you do? The comfortable thing might be to find a way to move on soon, give Culley a fresh start with a healthier quarterback room and make the Watson story someone else’s issue. And maybe someone will decide, at the 11th hour, to meet the Texans’ price. Or find a creative way to write conditions into a deal that work for Houston. Absent that sort of offer, though, it’s really hard for me to see Caserio’s being backed into a corner here. It’s too important to the future of the franchise that it gets the highest price possible for the NFL’s most valuable commodity—a young, under-contract, superstar quarterback. If that means essentially squatting on Watson’s rights, paying him $10.45 million for the year and managing a very weird situation over the coming months, so be it.
I say embrace the uncomfortable, eat the cost, and have his two-way butt sit the bench all year until you get a quality return for him.
Ok, but which is it going to be? Fans want him gone, but fans also want the highest possible return - ignoring the reasons why they want him gone and why another fanbase would be hesitant? Need to remain realistic here, getting emotional will definitely ensure this team gets little to no return on Watson. 3 firsts? 4 FIRSTS??? LOL some of the guys positing these scenarios have no understanding of real world leverage. If you sit on Watson now what makes anyone think his value is getting any higher next year? Circular reasoning will have you mired in a constant rebuild, so I hope Caserio is not holding onto those same expectations. There is a healthy middle ground in getting rid of Watson.
