I think that's probably the plan if the right offer is given, but it's smart to not commit to anything just yet. I still prefer the option of forcing Watson to sit out a year, but if a team blows you away with an offer at the draft, jump on it.
It’s gonna be so Texans when the Seahawks trade Wilson to the jets for the #2 pick and they get another Wilson while the Texans watch Watson sit out... just do it already, it’s over.
The only thing I need from Watson is for him to just accept a trade wherever. I understand why he wants to leave but if he tries to make it about 2 teams with sh*t draft picks then no, he can sit out. Anything beyond that is the Texans front office’s fault. And y’all who blame Watson are crazy delusional.
Financially doing it now would be kinda dumb, the new league year hasn't began so trading him now would accrue 21 mil in dead money, after the start of the league year they can designate his trade to a post June 1 trade and it would only accrue 5.4 mil in dead money. Plus if they wait to trade him at the draft they can get more picks for him. Right now they can only get picks up to the 2023 draft, at the draft they can involve 2024 picks.
While I agree Watson deserves some level of accountability for where things stand right now and that I disagree with how we went about this whole process, I disagree with the line of thinking of "force him to play or sit him an entire year out of spite." If you're the Texans, you're in a horrible situation right now. You have no legitimate draft assets because O'Brien wasted them. You have no talent because the top players were all traded, left or (in Watson's case) don't want to play for you anymore. And your reputation is as low as any organization in all of professional sports. Forcing Watson to play doesn't help you fix any of those problems. If he plays, you probably win more games than you want to. If he sits, it's a huge media circus all season long. And every week that goes by, Watson's value continues to decline whether he plays well or not, because that's one more week he's not playing for another franchise. I also understand the perspective of the previous poster who said the NFL is bigger than Watson, and McNair and the other owners probably don't want to set a bad precedent here. But if you're McNair and Caserio, I wouldn't care. I would care about improving the long-term product on the field and improving our reputation in the media. If you get good value out of Watson, turn that into legitimate draft capital and build a competitive team over the next 2-3 years out of that capital, then you're in a much better shape long-term than if you force your star QB to sit out.
Its the decision of the new GM/coach to try and salvage something... but we don't know how much is truly being said behind the scenes. A lot of the "sources" started to die down after Casserio took over, whether or not it was some of the other people who were let go recently. If they get closer to the draft and still feel there's not much change, and they still haven't explored some options, then its no longer the charlatan but its the charlatan-picked GM and coach that need to adjust. That being said, if any of the Jets/Dolphins or Panthers become enamored with one of the draft prospects, and the Texans hold firm on certain draft pick compensation, there may not be a viable market... as we know there isn't a legitimate market for a QB at this level. Not going to repeat the "they should have tried.." when its still clear the end result would have been the same.... one could argue that if they hadn't tried/failed with Brock Osweiler, they'd have had more draft capital. The teams that constantly try and fail are not necessarily ahead of the ones that use stopgaps. The best situations are the teams who have a legit QB... and then get somebody for the future to groom, with the appropriate coaching staff and other pieces already in place. Unfortunately the teams that spin their wheels the most and constantly draft QB's don't necessarily have that luxury until they actually land on somebody. That's a good example... but still from a different sport where trades and superstar movement are far more common. There is no precedent or expected trade value for a 25 year old franchise QB in his prime.
I don't understand why the Texans are dragging this out. He will never play for Houston again, so why pretend like they can change his mind when that won't happen? It's obvious the Texans are going into a full rebuild and they desperately need draft picks now. Honoring the contract is a complete waste of an argument because the Texans aren't going to be competitive for a while, and we could use some injection of talent via draft picks.
They should just let Watson sit out the season. Hopefully, cal will finally wake up and fire easterby by the end of next season.
That's a weak argument if that's the case. They could cut David Johnson and have plenty of money to trade Deshaun. Hell, I would cut all the bad contracts and realize that this upcoming year is going to be historically bad. The Texans need the draft picks for this upcoming draft because next year's QB's in the draft doesn't look good right now.
random but if DW really really really wants out can’t they ask him to restructure his contract first in a way to minimize the cap hit to them?
