Hilly Builds: Texans

 

    Welcome to Hilly Builds, where we're rebuilding every bad team in the NFL. Then maybe we'll work on the good teams, but we'll see how I'm feeling. Thanks to the great TrillWithers for letting me use the homage to him as the name, so lets get started:

The Houston Texans are an absolute dumpster fire. They're 4-7, they're already 13 million over the cap going into next season, and they don't own their own first or second round picks thanks to the Laramie Tunsil trade and the Brandin Cooks trade. We're taking over a really, really tough situation, but there's one thing we do have that no one else in the division has, and something that all but maybe 2 or 3 other teams would kill for: Deshaun Watson. 

As long as we have Deshaun, we have hope. Unfortunately, we do have to consider that his contract is going to kick in soon, so we can't just load up on high priced veterans and hope for the best. Make no doubt about it, we're keeping Deshaun Watson. I'll resign before I ship him out of town, but the contract is an unavoidable (and incredibly well deserved) hurdle that we'll have to face as we rebuild this team.

1. Figure out the JJ Watt Dilemma.

    JJ Watt was once on track to be one of the greatest defensive players in NFL History. He won 3 defensive player of the year awards by the time he was 26 years old. He led the league in sacks twice, tackles for loss three times, and provided quite a bit of versatility by batting down passes at the line of scrimmage, having 49 pass deflections over a 4 year stretch. He was positionally versatile, which allowed the Texans to out scheme opponents frequently. By all accounts, he was one of the best ever already. Unfortunately that's when the injury bug hit.

    After not missing a game in his first 5 seasons, Watt has missed 32 games over the last 4 seasons. The wear and tear of playing at such a physical position at an incredibly elite level has started to take its toll on our iconic superstar. When healthy, he's a fantastic veteran presence and still a high level football player from time to time. But Watt is also worth $32,000,000 over the next 2 years and that's way too much to be paying a 31 year old player with an extensive injury history and declining production when healthy. 

    We're going to lay out the options so JJ can choose his own decision. We're either going to have to restructure to significantly lower the cap hit over the next two years, and if he decides he doesn't want to spend his remaining years on a bad team, we'll have no problem trading him and his easily cutable contract for whatever value we can get. There's a really good chance we have to outright cut him, but there's no more guarantees on his deal so we can move on scotfree, and I also think a team that has the ability and depth to deploy him less to keep him healthier like the Ravens or Steelers might trade a 5th or 6th round pick. In fact, I'm sure JJ would welcome an opportunity to go to the Steelers and play with his brother TJ. So we take care of one of our all time greats, clear the cap space, get a little bit of draft capital and keep that connection with JJ for when his career is over and I hire him to just hangout around the facility. 

2. Get As Many Cheap Assets As Possible.

    This one is pretty simple. We're going to have a quarterback on a massive deal soon, and one that we want to build a winner around. So for increased flexibility going forward, we're going to have to get rid of some of the luxury items on this roster for mid and late round picks. Outside of Watson, there's really not anyone on this roster they could even think about getting a first round pick for. Brandin Cooks, Bernadrick McKinney, Duke Johnson, and David Johnson are all pretty solid to good football players that could be worth a lot more to a team that's one or two pieces away from getting over the hump.

    They also carry a combined $31,000,000 cap hit, while only having $3,700,000 in dead cap. So if we can't trade them, we can absolutely cut them without much worry. Cooks has been traded for first rounders a couple times, and was just traded for a 2nd rounder. So I think going into the last year of his deal, a 3rd round pick is probably fair value for a 27 year old receiver on the verge of the 5th 1,000 yard season of his career. Between the other 3, I think we could squeeze a 6th rounder out of a team this year, and perhaps a conditional 6th or 7th round pick next year. It's not great value, but holding onto those contracts is going to put us in worse position to build around Watson long term, so it's crucial that we clear the deck.

    After trading/cutting Watt, McKinney, Cooks, and the Johnson boys, We clear up approximately $48,500,000 in cap space, and add an extra 3rd, 5th, and 6th round pick this year. That gives us 10 draft choices in the 3rd-7th rounds, but none in the first 2. This is an issue, big time. 

3. Gut the roster quickly.  

    This roster is in really bad shape. The Texans will only make 2 first-round picks between 2017-2021 after trading 2 of them to select Deshaun Watson, and trading 2 of them for Laramie Tunsil. The other selection, OT Tytus Howard, has shown some promise, but hasn't really taken the next step yet. There was a game earlier this year where not a single rookie played a snap, which shows how bad last years draft class was, and how little young talent we have under contract. So this is going to be a full on tear down. 

If we can get anything for Whitney Mercilus, we will. He's an aging edge rusher on a bad contract, so if we can eat enough dead money, we might be able to get a little bit of value for him. I'm not sure how likely that will be, but if we don't find a trade partner, we'll probably have to just bite the bullet on him and keep him. Bradley Roby might be able to net us a late round pick going into the last year of his deal, but considering he's an average corner at an above average cap hit, we're probably going to have to cut him to open another $8,500,000. Now we've got about $57-60,000,000 in cap space, a franchise quarterback, a good, but expensive left tackle, and not a whole lot of anything else. There aren't going to be any reliable weapons on this roster so we've got to give Watson something to work with. We're letting Will Fuller leave, because I've got another idea. 

4. Free Agency: Take a lot of cheap gambles... Except one. 

    Free Agency is where we're going to be making a lot of moves. With no blue chip draft capital available, we've got to figure out a way to field this roster in a way that will, at the very least, protect Deshaun Watson for our rebuild. There's one player I'm prepared to give a large, long term contract to, and that's Bears WR Allen Robinson. Robinson has put up gaudy pro bowl numbers during his career with passers like Blake Bortles, Mitch Trubisky, and Nick Foles getting him the ball. In college, he had Matt McGloin and Christian Hackenberg. There are some injury concerns there, but not nearly as many as Will Fuller or Kenny Golladay and I believe that Robinson is a top 5 wide receiver that's been in terrible situations for most of his career. 

At just 27 years old, Robinson is likely just reaching his performative peak, and we want to give Deshaun Watson a go to receiver that he can throw the ball up to. We're giving Robinson a 5 year deal worth $100 Million, but we'll structure the contract so that way it's really only a 4-year deal worth $85,000,000. Robinson gets a massive contract that shows his value among NFL Receivers even though we both know he's getting cut or restructured before that final year, and we get a big time, game breaking receiver at market value. If we have to get into a bidding war for Robinson, so be it. But he's going to be a Texan when it's all said and done. 

    After we get Robinson signed, now we're going to shift our focus to signing a bunch of team friendly deals with aging veterans, young players who fizzled out in their first stops, and athletic diamonds in the rough that we can potentially uncover from small schools and practice squads. 

    Players like Solomon Thomas, Corey Davis, John Ross, Hassan Reddick, Jarrad Davis, Charles Harris, and Takk McKinley are all former first round picks that are likely to hit the open market this year after disappointing with their first (and in several cases second and third) team. Hopefully we're able to give some of those younger players some stability and consistent playing time in a low pressure environment, and they blossom. Some of them will continue to stink, but a couple of them could really step it up in a new environment. Ross, Reddick, Davis, Harris and McKinley were taken by the Bengals, Cardinals, Lions, Dolphins, and Falcons. All five of which have since fired the regimes that drafted those players, so I think we can find some bargains.

    Mike Iupati, Everson Griffin, Tahir Whitehead, Derek Wolfe, Xavier Rhodes, Lawrence Guy, Logan Ryan, Bruce Irvin, and Danny Amendola are all veterans over the age of 30 that are playing on contracts worth $6,000,000 or less a year. We're going to try and sign a few of these guys to some cheap, team friendly deals to help revitalize their career in the hopes of landing one more big contract. We can even structure the deals in a way that we eat most of the small cap hit this year, which would make them very tradable assets if we're still a year or two away from really getting down to business. I don't really know which of those guys will be getting mid level deals this season, but my point being, there are usually very productive veterans that are cap casualties waiting to be signed to team friendly contracts every offseason. We're going to make sure we get at least 2 veteran corners though, because we need them in the worst way.

    Lastly, in terms of the diamonds in the rough, I think we'll try and go after anyone that just put up absurd combine numbers or production from a small school. Or a player that was vastly underutilized on a bad college team with a bad coach. There are quality NFL players on practice squads right now, we're going to do our best to find and polish them. At worst, they get cut at the end of training camp with really no lost cost, but if we can find a productive NFL starter or two, we can really add to the talent pool. 

5. Draft: Focus On Undervalued Positions.

    Without a pick in the first two rounds this year, there's really no way for us to leapfrog into a spot where we can get an elite impact player at a highly valued position. So we're going to focus our earliest picks on positions where good players slip because it's not as widely valued: we're going after safeties, running backs, ILBs, and Interior DL. I think there's a really good chance that immediate impact players can be acquired in rounds 3 and 4 if you're ok with the fact they don't play a premium position, and are a little more situationally limited. Right now, we're fine with that, because we need an influx of talent all over the place, and if we can start to cobble together a good, young, cheap corps of players to surround Deshaun Watson with, it'll allow us even more versatility in our organization. We'll use our later round picks on wide receivers and corners, essentially hoping to hit a serious lottery ticket. If we don't hit, it's not really an issue. But we need to absolutely make sure that we get at least a couple guys in this draft who can develop nicely. Maybe we even trade down once or twice and get a couple extra late round picks without sacrificing salary cap space. 

6. Understand that this is step one, not the conclusion of the rebuild:

    Lastly, we need to come to terms with the fact that we're going to have to keep rebuilding this roster regardless of how our season goes. We play in one of the weaker divisions in football historically, and it wouldn't shock me in the least if we're able to go 11-5 and win the division/make the playoffs. As long as we have Deshaun Watson, that's always going to be possible. But it's also important that we understand that volatility with other teams isn't necessarily indicative of where we currently stand, and if the goal is winning a Super Bowl, we can't abandon our longterm plan by signing high priced free agents after the first good season. The goal is still surrounding Watson with cheap, cost controlled talent, so if anything, a good season will actually allow us to trade down in the upcoming drafts without the pressure of having to acquire an immediate playmaker at the top of the draft. 

    Laramie Tunsil is someone that I would consider moving after this season, but I do think there's a critical importance in keeping our franchise QB safe, so even though we're paying a premium on him, it's a bullet I'm willing to bite so long as he plays well and keeps Deshaun healthy. We just have to understand that next seasons overall results are meaningless, because soon Watsons contract will fully kick in and we'll need the versatility to continue to build the Houston Texans into a super bowl contender. 

NBA Legend Joakim Noah Retires

Okay, NBA Legend may be a stretch, but Joakim Noah did have an outstanding NBA career that included a couple of All-Star appearance's, a Defensive Player of the Year Award, and a most impressively a 4th place finish in the 2013-14 MVP voting.

As a Bulls fan though, Noah meant so much more than the accolades. He wasn't a flashy player by any means; but you always knew he was going to play his nuts off for you, and when you play in a city like Chicago that is the easiest way to get to the people's heart. Watching him play the 2013-14 season was special. That was a middling Bulls team that quickly had the excitement of Derrick Rose's return wear off after he had to have another knee surgery that would end his return after just 10 games. That combined with Luol Deng being dealt for essentially money (shout out Jerry Reinsdorf) midseason, the exciting era of Bulls basketball that appeared to be on the horizon was dead before we could blink. Jo had other plans though, he went and had his best season as an NBA Player and led the Bulls to 48 wins. Jo put up 12.6 ppg with 11.6 boards and as one of the better passing big men in the game he put up 5.4 assists and included 4 triple doubles. The numbers just don't do Jo justice in describing how good he truly was for that team. but his production was recognized. Not only did this season lead him to be the Defensive Player of the Year in the NBA but also ended up 4th(!!!) in the MVP voting.

He wasn't the flashiest or the most skilled but no one played harder and maximized their production like Jo.

Lions Rebuild

 After my incredible and ground breaking vision in rebuilding the Chicago Bears yesterday, The NFL's reigning GILFOY (Grandmother I'd Like to own my Football team Of the Year) Martha Firestone Ford has also hired me to rebuild the hapless Detroit Lions as a passion project. So here we go folks, I don't even need to fire anyone because Martha already did that.

1. Time to Move on from Matthew Stafford.

    As much as it sucks to move on from the best Quarterback the Lions have had since Bobby Layne, it's probably time for a clean break from all sides. Stafford will be 33 by the start of next season, and with 2 years and $59 Million in cap hit over the next two years, this is probably the last chance to move on from him and recoup anything close to adequate value. Sure, the Lions would only open up $14,000,000 in cap space and would have to eat $19,000,000 in dead cap, but that's definitely better than committing $33,000,000 to a team that's about to begin a rebuild. Stafford is past his prime, and would likely end up being cut after this upcoming year anyway, barring a significant restructuring. I think it's time for both sides to move on. No Detroit fan could possibly be upset with Stafford going to a legitimate contender before his career and body continue to deteriorate before our eyes, and I believe with the upcoming QB Changes, it shouldn't be that unrealistic to expect a late first round pick or an early second round pick for the former pro bowl QB. 

The Patriots, Saints, Steelers, 49ers, Colts, and Buccaneers all have significant question marks at the QB position going forward, an elite roster surrounding them, and none of those franchises are going to be in a position to select a QB towards the top of the draft this year. I don't think any teams would relinquish a first round pick this year for an aging QB, but considering his contract will likely be a bargain once the Lions eat the dead cap, I don't think a second and a third rounder split between this year and next year is that unrealistic. For the sake of the rebuild, let's trade him to the Colts this year for Jacob Eason, a third round pick this year, and a second round pick next year. This removes a massive cap hit, gives the Lions a decent but unspectacular QB with decent potential to fill in as a stop gap, and helps start to rebuild their draft capital. 

2. Try and trade Jamie Collins, Desmond Trufant, Danny Shelton, and Justin Coleman.

    None of the 4 are bad players, in fact, all have played pretty decently this year. But at the same time, all 4 were given relatively bigger contracts than market value indicates from Patricia and Quinn in order to try and save their jobs. None of the contracts are remotely cuttable Pre-June 1st designation, so the best bet in order to save some more cap space is to find a trade partner for a couple of the aging veterans to give more playing time to younger players. Jamie Collins should be relatively movable since the Lions would have to eat a chunk of dead cap to move him, but would still open up some more space and would probably net a 5th or 6th round pick. 

Coleman and Trufant are moveable as well, but Coleman is a bit of a longer term deal which could be a bit of an issue. Trufant is also going to carry a $10,000,000 cap hit to whichever team trades for him, but with it being the last year of his deal, it shouldn't be too hard at all for a contender to extend Trufant out a little bit without sacrificing too much flexibility. Let's say between Shelton, Trufant, and Coleman, the Lions pick up another 4th or 5th round pick and save an extra $15-20,000,000 in cap space. 

Sure, we'd have to eat between $10-15,000,000 in dead cap, but we're an abysmally constructed roster right now, so we'll use our inability to contend next year as an asset to eat dead cap and possibly accrue more assets to continue to open up our books next year. But none of these players are really cuttable, so if we can't unload them, they're sticking around one more year.

3. Marvin Jones, Everson Griffin, Kenny Golladay, and Duron Harmon are free agents: Let them walk.

    As unappealing as it is losing a talent like Kenny Golladay, the former 3rd round pick is due a big contract coming up soon, and with his inability to stay healthy this year, I'd rather let him walk and try and accumulate compensatory picks the following year rather than try and trade him on a franchise tag. The difference between the Bears and Lions predicaments with their WRs are pretty similar, but Allen Robinson is quite a bit better than Golladay and I think it would be easier to find a team willing to sacrifice a valuable draft asset AND give him an extension. Golladay has a few more question marks surrounding him, and is probably a better bet of obtaining value in the compensatory route. 

Marvin Jones and Duron Harmon will both probably get contracts from other teams and Griffin is a dark horse possibility as well. As long as the Lions avoid big money free agents (We will), and instead focus on bargain bin signings of veterans who were cut, we should be able to accumulate somewhere in the ball park of a 3rd and 5th rounder next year, or potentially two 4ths.

 Now that compensatory draft picks are tradeable, it gives us more bullets in the holster to revamp this roster and clear up cap space for when we have the ability to make more moves. It'll suck a bit, but I'd expect Golladay to get a 4-5 year deal in the ballpark of $16-$18,000,000 a year, or a 2-3 year deal worth $22-$24,000,000 a year. Either way, the guarantees will be hefty, and since we're moving on from the Quarterback position, I see no reason to throw hefty guarantees towards a luxury item that will be drastically underutilized comparatively. 

4. Test the market for Kerryon Johnson. 

    Injury prone and a year away from his deal expiring, now would be a good chance to unload him on the cheap to a contender trying to add weapons for another run at a Super Bowl. I think there's a good chance the Lions could get a conditional 5th or 6th rounder depending on his health and how many games he plays, and with Deandre Swift as the new bellcow, I don't want to spend any money extending an injury prone Kerryon Johnson. He could be a good fit to replace Mark Ingram as a bulkier change of pace back with JK Dobbins in Baltimore, or a replacement for the wildly inept Leonard Fournette in Tampa Bay. I think either team would gladly part with a 7th rounder next year that becomes a 6th if Kerryon can play 10-12 games. 

5. Free Agency Of The Bargain Bin Variety:

    We're not going after any big ticket items this free agency after the massive contracts given out by the last regime to save their jobs. We're going to play the long term game and sign very cheap contracts from veterans that were cap casualties. I'd target aging veterans to shore up the depth and provide quality veteran leadership on a team trying to rebuild a culture as well as former highly drafted prospects that didn't pan out. We're going to try and find a couple diamonds in the rough from talented players that were in poor situations and were underutilized or misutilized in their last stop. 

There are plenty of bargain bin success stories, like Shaq Barrett, Jamie Collins, Ndamukong Suh and Robert Quinn who all took extremely team-friendly, short term deals and helped make their organizations significantly better. Players that may become cap casualties, and would in turn, allow them to be signed at a lower number than usual without sacrificing compensatory capital: Brandon Graham, Kareem Jackson, Malik Jackson, Kevin Zeitler, Kawann Short, AJ Bouye, Brandon Williams, and Riley Reiff. None of those players are outstanding, but they're all very solid and getting a couple of them on team friendly deals could help establish a veteran presence for a team that'll have quite a few rookies contributing.

6. Draft: We'll see?

    The Lions are in an incredibly tenuous situation in terms of where they're picking in the upcoming draft. At 4-7, the Lions currently sit in 9th in the draft order, and there's almost no shot of picking in the top 2. So they can pick anywhere from 3rd-16th in my opinion. Based on the remaining schedule, there's a good chance that if the Lions lose on Sunday, they'll lose out. 4-12 should be enough to pick 4th or 5th, while 5-11 could drop them down to the 6-8 range.

 If the Lions have the 4th pick, they should be in position to get one of Justin Fields, Trey Lance, or Zach Wilson if Cincinnati remains ahead of them. It would also put the Lions in great position to trade down and accumulate blue chip draft chips now and in the future, before being able to survey the landscape and figure out where they're going at the QB position. 

I wouldn't hate taking a top QB prospect now, but I'd much rather try and get a  bookend corner to play with Jeffrey Okudah. Patrick Surtain looks like an absolute stud and Caleb Farley looks great too. If the Lions win a game or two and aren't in the QB sweepstakes, it wouldn't be the worst thing to grab a defensive lineman/edge rusher, and spend rounds 2 and 3 trying to add young pass catchers to develop for the next franchise quarterback we acquire. Let's just say we get a pass rusher, another solid young corner, and a high upside WR. I'll call that a win. Trade Downs are always a good strategy, but with such a question mark at the Quarterback position, we have to wait and see what we're left with.

7. If we do Trade Down.... Prioritize next year.

    In the case of a trade down in rounds one or two, we're going to put a slightly higher emphasis on getting some draft capital next year. Maybe we've already picked up a pick or two in trades, so after comp picks are tabulated, we should be going in with 11-12 draft selections without trades. So it could be a really good chance to sacrifice a little bit of value now for a lot more next year. That way if we're a quarterback away, we can push some chips in to make sure we acquire our guy.

 And if Sam Howell, Spencer Rattler, JT Daniels and Mac Jones aren't our kinda guys, we can roll it over one more year and wait for that draft class. We just can't reach on a guy and set ourselves back even further. At the very least, we'll have a mediocre but average QB and a very strong roster. 

8. Coaching Hires?

    I'm going a little off track, but I'm a big fan of Brian Daboll, especially since we're moving on from Stafford as our long term answer. He was instrumental in the early Patriots dynasty as a wide receivers coach, was the Jets QB Coach for Mark Sanchez's best two years and their AFC Championship game appearances, he was Nick Saban's OC and was the man who pushed for Tua to play, and then he's worked wonders with Josh Allen in Buffalo. Sign me up for Daboll.