Texans: Tire Fire of All Tire Fires

bosockboy

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I don’t think so. By stats and eye test, Cutler was a decided cut below Watson as a player; unlike Watson, he certainly was not one of the best starting QB in the league circa 2009.
I agree, it was still pretty unprecedented at the time. Cutler was definitely seen as a future star though I think.
 

BaseballJones

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#2, Darnold, a 2022 first rounder...that's all something I would easily give up if I'm the Jets, and it would be hard for anyone to top that.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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I had a long post written out about how the Patriots can afford Watson, build around him, and how neither the Jets or Dolphins are going to trade for Watson. But the board ate it.

Hes not going to the Jets or Dolphins. Get it done, Theo.
 

bosockboy

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They probably want to draft their own QB and want neither of them. But if they want to pair one of them with DeVonta Smith their evaluation of each will be pretty fascinating.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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Culley is a born-again evangelical Christian. My sense from everything that I have read and heard about Easterby and McNair, this seems like his most important quality to them.

We will be fortunate to win four games next season.
 

67YAZ

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Culley is a born-again evangelical Christian. My sense from everything that I have read and heard about Easterby and McNair, this seems like his most important quality to them.

We will be fortunate to win four games next season.
So are Lovie Smith & Josh McCown, if those rumored moves come to pass. I don't know that religion is the #1 quality I'd look for in a coach.
 
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nayrbrey

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So are Lovie Smith & Josh McCown, if those rumored moves come to pass. I don't know that religion is the #1 quality I'd look for in a coach.
Yeah, it looks like they are putting faith as the determining factor for their hires. And there's nothing wrong with that, but for a billion dollar investment that is an NFL franchise you would think there would be other factors looked at.

I was wondering how Caserio fit into all this. Though he'd been around the Patriots for a long time, I never really read anything about his off field life. I found this article on the hiring process:

McClain: How a secret flight finally landed Nick Caserio for Texans (houstonchronicle.com)

But something else stood out to McNair during the 3½-hour trip: Caserio’s devotion to his family and his religion.
So for what seems to be their plan, it all aligns.
 

nattysez

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I believe it was Holley's book that had an anecdote about the Belichick kids asking their parents partway through a trip to Europe about the guy with the circle around his head that they kept seeing everywhere. It was Jesus, and BB said something like "We might be in trouble for that one."

Funny that he has had such super-religious people working around him in the past given his apparent lack of interest in religion.
 

BaseballJones

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I believe it was Holley's book that had an anecdote about the Belichick kids asking their parents partway through a trip to Europe about the guy with the circle around his head that they kept seeing everywhere. It was Jesus, and BB said something like "We might be in trouble for that one."

Funny that he has had such super-religious people working around him in the past given his apparent lack of interest in religion.
I think BB basically cares about football. You could be a fundamentalist Christian, an atheist, or everything in between, and he wouldn't care, as long as you did your job with the team well.
 

67YAZ

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I actually really admire Lovie Smith. Players from all his previous jobs sing high praises about Lovie the coach, Lovie the man, and Lovie the mentor. He is clearly a great person who has a positive influence on players' lives, and no doubt his faith is a big part of that.

It's the Xs & Os I'd be really worried about here. Lovie has been out of the league for 5 years and hasn't been a DC for 14 years. His biggest problem at Illinois was poor recruiting, but he also stubbornly played a base Cover-2 defense season after season despite Big 10 offenses getting more innovative and diverse.

What's the template going to be for the Texans? Is Lovie going to give up the Cover-2 after 20 years? That's got to be a bigger concern than where he goes church.
 

OurF'ingCity

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E5 Yaz

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Lombardi covered the Texans leverage on his pod. It’s not nothing.
They have some leverage. The question is, do they really want to exercise that leverage with a player who has been so open about wanting out ... especially a player that by position needs to be the team leader?
 

Mystic Merlin

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They have some leverage. The question is, do they really want to exercise that leverage with a player who has been so open about wanting out ... especially a player that by position needs to be the team leader?
Bingo. This isn’t Logan Mankins, Leveon Bell or Keenan McCardell. His absence on the field while on the reserve list or whatever would be an omnipresent distraction, and that would be aggravated when they are almost certainly no good under John Q QB. I don’t see how they’re in any position to win the locker room over in a stand-off. Unlike some other guys who have held out, there seems to be significant sympathy for Watson’s position among teammates and no sympathy (perhaps even outright hostility) for the organization. Watson should call their bluff.

I suppose the resident Texans fans would know best, but is there any sense that the Texans fan base would eventually turn in Watson here? I gotta think that matters to how ownership thinks about this politically.
 

Kliq

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I believe JJ Watt has been very supportive of Watson. Watson and Watt are by far the most established players on the team and both of them seem unhappy in Houston. Unlike in a lot of other cases in NFL history, this isn't about money as both guys have big contracts. This is the case of an organization that does not respect it's players and the players are not going to side with the organization in that matter, especially if they have witnessed first hand the clear dysfunction that has been going in Houston over the last several years.
 

EvilEmpire

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If Houston can't get full value for Watson in a trade, I could easily see them rolling the dice and hoping that the new coach and GM will improve the culture enough to get Watson back on board.
 

Harry Hooper

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If Houston can't get full value for Watson in a trade, I could easily see them rolling the dice and hoping that the new coach and GM will improve the culture enough to get Watson back on board.
Given the current level of talent on the Texans roster, having Watson sit out an entire season while they rebuild before returning to play in Houston would not be the worst thing in the world
 

tims4wins

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Not going to lie, there is at least a small part of me that is surprised Caserio didn’t bail on the job. Makes me kind of wonder about Caserio to be honest. Yes, he is now set for life with his six year deal. And maybe that’s enough for him. But it’s hard to see this working out, and if he fails to build a contender, I doubt he’ll ever get another chance, as all of his prior success will be attributed to BB / TB12.
 

BigSoxFan

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Not going to lie, there is at least a small part of me that is surprised Caserio didn’t bail on the job. Makes me kind of wonder about Caserio to be honest. Yes, he is now set for life with his six year deal. And maybe that’s enough for him. But it’s hard to see this working out, and if he fails to build a contender, I doubt he’ll ever get another chance, as all of his prior success will be attributed to BB / TB12.
Didn’t he get something crazy like $6M / year from Houston? That’s a ton of life-altering money, especially in a state with no income tax. I think you’re right that this is not likely to work out but I think you always have to strike while the iron is hot in this business. You can turn into yesterday’s news in a flash.

He may never get to run the show again but he’ll have plenty of opportunities for jobs even if Houston doesn’t work out. I probably see this working out like Pioli where he became GM of the Chiefs and then was assistant GM of the Falcons.
 

tims4wins

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Didn’t he get something crazy like $6M / year from Houston? That’s a ton of life-altering money, especially in a state with no income tax. I think you’re right that this is not likely to work out but I think you always have to strike while the iron is hot in this business. You can turn into yesterday’s news in a flash.

He may never get to run the show again but he’ll have plenty of opportunities for jobs even if Houston doesn’t work out. I probably see this working out like Pioli where he became GM of the Chiefs and then was assistant GM of the Falcons.
Definitely life-altering money. Pioli did have some success in KC though - they went to the playoffs at least once. I don’t see Houston as a playoff team any time soon.

Edit: he was exec of the year in 2010. It’s a fairly dumb / meaningless award but nonetheless is a pretty high honor.
 
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One thing that could - maybe, possibly, who knows - work in Caserio's favor is that he won't be blamed for the shit-show he's now overseeing. If people in the NFL see - rightly, in my view - that he took a job with as good a QB situation as can reasonably be imagined, and that then, through no fault of his own, it all went sideways, there's something awful but also LIBERATING about that. He has a built-in excuse for its taking a bit longer to reconstruct what is now obviously a total shit-show clown-house. He's a steady hand on the tiller of a boat whose owner is ultimately responsible for the tire fire smoldering in Houston. Just needs to put his head down, cash the paycheck, enjoy the giant house and do his best.
 

BigSoxFan

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One thing that could - maybe, possibly, who knows - work in Caserio's favor is that he won't be blamed for the shit-show he's now overseeing. If people in the NFL see - rightly, in my view - that he took a job with as good a QB situation as can reasonably be imagined, and that then, through no fault of his own, it all went sideways, there's something awful but also LIBERATING about that. He has a built-in excuse for its taking a bit longer to reconstruct what is now obviously a total shit-show clown-house. He's a steady hand on the tiller of a boat whose owner is ultimately responsible for the tire fire smoldering in Houston. Just needs to put his head down, cash the paycheck, enjoy the giant house and do his best.
Yup. Pretty low stakes for several years now. He also gets clean slate after Watson is dealt, a real chance to cement his post-BB legacy.
 

dynomite

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I'd offer Houston a mid-round pick for him provided he'd agree to an 1 or 2 year extension to lower the $17.5 million number he's on now. He's still a top 10 player at his position.
Yes, I think a fair number of teams are probably in a similar frame of mind, although it does seem that there could actually be a fit in key ways. The Pats do have probably the two biggest key requirements: 1) cap space and 2) a desperate need in the front 7.

Other factors in favor: the franchise has a track record of acquiring veteran stars later in their careers (although it might have helped that they were perennial Super Bowl favorites for two decades). Watt has also played for years under Billy O, Vrabel, and Crennel, so presumably the Patriots culture and system wouldn't be completely foreign to him. And, of course, Caserio is intimately familiar with the Pats roster, draft picks, and trading strategy, so he probably knows what kind of deal could work.

Other factors potentially against: To the extent he has a choice (does he have a no-trade?), would Watt want to join the Patriots and restructure his deal to play here? Obviously playing for Belichick probably holds a lot of appeal, but now in his 30s I imagine Watt wants to play for a contender. Does he want to bet on the post-Brady Patriots? At the same time, does Belichick want to give up cap space and draft capital for a guy who has only played 2 healthy seasons since 2015?
 

Harry Hooper

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How would/could all the missed games Watt has racked up factor into NLTBE incentives in a reworked deal?
 

67YAZ

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JJ’s wife features for the Chicago Red Stars, which has given Bears fans hope that he’d take a sweetheart deal to move there.
 
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Kliq

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Not sure what to think of Watt. He managed to stay healthy all of last season, which is good, but he really wasn't close to the DPOY Watt that terrorized the league in the early-2010s. He still has a knack for making big plays, but he's very much on the downside of his career.

He is by all accounts, a great teammate and a fun Twitter follow.
 

Beomoose

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Given the current level of talent on the Texans roster, having Watson sit out an entire season while they rebuild before returning to play in Houston would not be the worst thing in the world
I'm no Las Vegan, but the odds of Watson sitting a year out and then coming back to play for this same TX organization afterward seem phenomenally low.
 

Euclis20

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Not sure what to think of Watt. He managed to stay healthy all of last season, which is good, but he really wasn't close to the DPOY Watt that terrorized the league in the early-2010s. He still has a knack for making big plays, but he's very much on the downside of his career.

He is by all accounts, a great teammate and a fun Twitter follow.
Hell, he wasn't anywhere close to the 2018 version that was an All-Pro with 16 sacks and 7 forced fumbles. He absolutely only makes sense for a team that has super bowl aspirations next year, he's not lifting any team from mediocrity to contention.
 

DanoooME

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Not sure what to think of Watt. He managed to stay healthy all of last season, which is good, but he really wasn't close to the DPOY Watt that terrorized the league in the early-2010s. He still has a knack for making big plays, but he's very much on the downside of his career.

He is by all accounts, a great teammate and a fun Twitter follow.
He's a damn hero in that city because of all of the work he did fundraising for Houston during Harvey.
 

BigSoxFan

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He's a damn hero in that city because of all of the work he did fundraising for Houston during Harvey.
Yeah, he’s basically Houston’s Big Papi. Caserio will have a real tough situation on his hand if JJ wants to stay but football ops wants to spend his money elsewhere, especially after the impending Watson debacle.
 

Mystic Merlin

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Definitely. Fortunately for Caserio, it sounded a lot like Watt was fed up with the Texans by year’s end and you would think going a better team not blowing itself up would be the best move for him. He will always be a hero in Houston no matter where, if anywhere, he goes.
 

67YAZ

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As you mentioned in the QB thread, the Bears are in salary cap distress (Khalil Mack ain't cheap) so I don't think this is especially likely.
Hence the "sweetheart" deal - Watt would have to take a sizable pay cut and probably some creative contract structuring + incentives in order to live in the same city as his wife. Possible, but not likely.

Watt may well decide to try to maximize his value and/or sign on to a Super Bowl contender to round out his career and then move to Chicago (or wherever Keilia is at that point).
 

Section30

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NFL Trade rumors from McClain of the Houston Chronicle:

The Rams-Lions trade will have nothing to do with a Watson trade if the Texans do it. They'll want 2 ones, 2 twos and 2 young defensive starters, at the least. Watson, 25, under contract, great QB, team leader, beloved by fans, pillar of the community. Start with the Jets.
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) January 31, 2021
https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/patriots/nfl-rumors-texans-asking-price-deshaun-watson-trade-revealed
 

OurF'ingCity

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I'd take these kind of reports with a massive grain of salt. What the Texans "want" is more or less irrelevant - they'll either (a) convince Watson to keep playing for them or (b) he'll make very clear he has zero intention of doing so no matter what they do to try to placate him, in which case they will trade him for the best deal they can get. I find it exceedingly unlikely that Watson tells Houston he'll play with them but the Texans trade him anyway - that just makes no sense and doesn't gibe with what Caserio has said to date, although I understand that is obviously a lot of posturing.
 

Gunfighter 09

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Vinny Bongsignore of the LV review journal is the media voice of Mark Davis. If Vinny is reporting it, the news is coming from the owner:

View: https://twitter.com/VinnyBonsignore/status/1356758961978920960


Multiple
@NFL
sources indicate to me that Derek Carr is a hot commodity. And it is expected that multiple teams will pursue him via trade That could lead to the
@Raiders
pursuing Deshaun Watson in a blockbuster trade. My story:

The Raiders apparently have an offer of 2 firsts for Carr and are willing to package two more of their own to get Watson. I have to imagine that none of those picks are premium picks, so I don't think the 4 #1s get it done.
 

E5 Yaz

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After reading the article, why wouldn't the Raiders just offer Carr, two first-round picks and something else for Watson? Seems like they're thinking three-way trade only
 

BaseballJones

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After reading the article, why wouldn't the Raiders just offer Carr, two first-round picks and something else for Watson? Seems like they're thinking three-way trade only
Good question. Maybe they've already talked to Houston and Houston has said they're not interested in Carr? But it would seem easier to do this (if you're Vegas) rather than try to bring in a third organization. Simpler is usually better.