New York Jets steal Shaq Lawson from Houston’s dumpster fire sale

The New York Jets needed pass rush help after the season-ending injury to Carl Lawson. They were able to steal Shaq Lawson from the Houston Texans.

The Houston Texans are working towards making a record number of transactions in a single season if they haven’t exceeded that record (whatever it is) already. Since his arrival as the team’s general manager, Nick Caserio has been tweaking the roster almost daily with free agent acquisitions, trades, and of course draft picks back in the Spring. His latest deal was seemingly a favor to the New York Jets, who needed some pass rush help.

The latest transaction by Caserio and Company sent pass-rusher Shaq Lawson to the New York Jets for a sixth-round draft pick. The hilarious thing about this trade is the fact that the Houston Texans recently traded linebacker Benardrick McKinney — a good player who missed all but four games in 2020 due to injury — to acquire Lawson.

Now they have dumped Lawson for next-to-nothing to a New York Jets team that simply refuses to go into the 2021 season without a pass rusher named Lawson coming off the edge.

Good for the New York Jets here. Lawson has been a little bit underrated in the last couple of seasons even if he hasn’t necessarily been living up to his billing as a former first-round draft pick.

He had a career-high 6.5 sacks in the 2019 season and followed it up with four more sacks in 2020. More importantly, Lawson has 18 QB hits in each of the last two seasons as well as 53 total quarterback pressures. Sacks are undoubtedly not the only way to measure pass-rush productivity and Lawson has been a pretty solid one.

The Texans, on the other hand, have parlayed Benardrick McKinney into a couple of late draft picks which is a huge disappointment in terms of return on investment. The 2018 Pro Bowl linebacker signed a $50 million contract extension and the Texans were obviously on the hook for $21 million guaranteed at one point but only got a couple more seasons out of him.

The trade of Lawson is absolutely no surprise to anyone who has been following what Houston is doing these days, which is seemingly dealing players for discounted rates to teams in need. It would be a bit shocking if Houston didn’t make a few more trades in the coming 24 hours based on what we’ve seen from them already.

For the New York Jets, there is some reason for renewed hope after the Carl Lawson injury now that you’re bringing in Shaq Lawson. It’s reasonable to expect Robert Saleh to maximize Lawson’s talent and he fills a massive need.