I think we are 2 good off seasons from contention. My official amateur fancast: Cut Cushing Let Joseph walk Cut everyone on OL except Martin, Davenport and Mancz. Martin starts, Davenport and Mancz are depth. Newton depth too if healthy. Trade Miller, pair him with one of our 3rds for a 2nd or late 1st (maybe wishful thinking). Should have 25+ mil cap equity Use most of your salary cap equity and your theoretical 2nd rounder to rebuild your O line. Use one of 3rds on a TE. Use your last 3rd and rest of your picks for depth. Don't waste them trying to hit home runs. Yes secondary doesn't get addressed much this off-season. Can't fix everything in 1 off-season. Let the defense suffer in 2018 and rebuild/retool it next off-season. Cutting Jackson and Mercilus in 2019 will give us $10 mil in cap money to help. Cutting Watt (assuming he doesn't come back to be at least 80%) saves another 10 if needed. Cool tool here: http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/tools/roster/houston-texans/
If it comes to it a CJ retirement and or Newton release/injury settlement saves another $10 million this off-season.
I think when it comes to the O line, you keep Martin for sure, I think you bring Mancz back since he's an RFA that should be fairly cheap. I think Davenport has to start likely at RT. I think you bring back Quessenberry since he's an RFA and would provide a little bit of something for cheap. I don't think you bring back any of the guards given that XSF didn't show enough to deserve a new contract, Jeff Allen has an out in his contract to where you can cut him and save 5 mil in cap space, and I don't know anything about Slade. Now, having said that, I think maybe you bring back XSF if he's REALLY cheap.....but I'd prefer to look elsewhere. That gives you 2 tackles and 2 centers heading into the off-season. Also I overlooked him earlier, but you keep Kyle Fuller too most likely and he's a guard, but not a starter. That leaves you with 2 maybe 3 starters on the O line and a ton of work to do.
Cap casualties Brian Cushing (even if he stays) 8.5 mil saved Derek Newton 5.5 mil saved Jeff Allen (though maybe not, he's just a good candidate) 5 mil saved That's all of the really good candidates and if they make those cuts, the Texans should have about 78 million dollars worth of cap room...... but they'll have to give Clowney a new deal and there will be a ton of positions they need starters in.
Man this UCF qb is awesome This is the type of backup qb we need. Just saying I know we need more on this team and backup qb is at the bottom of the list
If you aren’t contending you can cut Jackson now and just roll that cap savings. One of the ways the and other teams always have cap room is by rolling cap dollars every year to compound
Mercilus maybe not at only $4 mil. I'm admittedly not high on him and I think he is replaceable. L Jackson is a C grade CB making B+/A grade money. He saves 7mil. If cutting both allows us to get the OL taken care plus add a Rahsaan Melvin, Ross Cockrell, Malcolm Butler or Patrick Robinson then I do it.
There are so many holes on the team that you can't be dumping players you can't replace just to save a bit of cap space. As it stands, you are kind of screwed in the secondary given that you only have Kareem Jackson and Kevin Johnson under contract at CB going into next season. Add in Dre Hal, and Treston Decoud and that's a grand total of 4 players under contract in the entire secondary. When it comes to rolling cap savings, part of the reason the Texans will have so much cap space is that they are rolling over 12 million collars in cap space from this year.
Why would they cut mercilus? He’s a good player on a team friendly contract, when they can trade clowney for a 1st and maybe a 2nd. Mercilus at 4 yrs/$25 million is better than clowney at 5 yrs/$110 million.
That's giving up on the season though and while it's probably right to do being stuck with Bill O'Brien for another year, I doubt you could sell that idea to him. I think their goal is to win games next season, not to get fired for yet another awful season.
I wouldn’t fully give up on the season but I would do a strategic rebuild lol. Letting Bouye walk was a stupid decision and now you have nothing but mediocrity in the secondary. Don’t turn that problem into two problems by having a bad secondary that’s also expensive.
You can make things a LOT worse by getting rid of the best DB still on your roster. Right now, you still need to add guys in order to shore up that secondary, why force yourself to need yet another DB in order to do so? Why intentionally make the secondary worse? Is Kareem Jackson a bit overpaid? Sure, but assuming you are talking about bringing in a FA, you are talking about overpaying someone so you likely wouldn't even get comparable value for what you'd save by cutting KJax. You might as well play out his deal while trying to build up the position.
offer a future fourth and fifth to cleveland for Thomas. It gives us a season to get that LT with a first round pick. Thomas/mancz /Martin/ Free agent/ Davenport. Sign Butler, the patriot tree giveth! Jackson moves to Safety. If only we had pro bowl corners so we wouldn't have to look in FA for one. they just don't grow on trees! Jacksonville is to the East! Merciless is so underrated and unappreciated, would have been a probowler this year. I see the same things in decoud that I liked in Aj before he became the bouye of today. He can get physical, has a knack for the ball and most importantly can turn his head around something Jackson and Johnson have issues with after years in the league. When the pressure is there, it will make things easier for the Dbs. Vs the patriots, Brady should have been picked off twice, dropped sure ints, clowney had a fumble recover TD. In seattle, Wilson fumbled and was picked off. Cut Jjo if he doesn't take a pay cut.
