Houston Texans: Tough decisions coming in 2021 offseason
Tough decisions loom in 2021 for the Houston Texans.
The Houston Texans have one of the most important questions in professional sports answered with superstar quarterback DeShaun Watson.
Aside from Watson, however, the Texans are a mess at the present moment.
Houston doesn’t have its long-term head coach or general manager. They are projected to be nearly $15 million over the 2021 salary cap. They have zero selections in the first two rounds of the 2021 NFL Draft.
In addition to those facts, Houston’s best offensive playmaker is a free agent after the 2020 season and arguably the best player in franchise history is the team’s likeliest salary cap casualty.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Texans fans!
The Texans have the privilege of playing in the Detroit Lions’ annual Thanksgiving Day game, a tradition that typically brings football fans a very entertaining game.
With that said, this game will push the Houston Texans one week closer to the 2021 offseason, which will be loaded with tough decisions.
First and foremost, what will Houston do with JJ Watt’s $17.5 million cap number? Entering his age 32 season, Watt has only played one full 16-game slate of games since 2015. He’s on pace to do so again this year, but there’s no doubt that he has struggled with injuries.
Watt is also not sacking the quarterback at the rate he once was, which is tough to expect of anyone, but he is still getting solid pressure. Still, Watt has 17 pressures in 10 games this season and had 24 last year in just eight games.
Watt is a Texans legend but with no dead money on the final year of his contract, the Texans could add $17.5 million in cap availability.
One of the reasons the Texans may need to do this? They have to find a way to re-sign or at least franchise tag wide receiver Will Fuller. Fuller definitely has injury issues that have plagued him in his career, but he’s such a difference-maker for the Texans’ offense and deserves at least one more year to prove he can stay on the field more often than not.
The former first-round pick is having a career year with Houston in 2020, already over 700 receiving yards (career-high) with four 100-yard games.
Because the Texans traded away DeAndre Hopkins and they don’t have any draft assets in the top 64 picks, they need to find a way to keep Fuller and probably Brandin Cooks as well, who has a $12 million cap number with no dead money either.
If they are going to keep those guys, the Texans will have to seriously consider letting go of running back David Johnson, who has a $9 million cap figure with just $2.1 in dead money.
Whatever head coach and general manager come in for Houston, they are going to have to make some really tough decisions, potentially take some sunk costs, and really find this team some bargains in free agency.
In order to get the cap space to do that, they might have to make some brutal cuts, including one of the team’s legendary players.