Despite talk of winning now, club’s actions suggest rebuilding project is underway.
As much as franchise insists it wants to win with Watson, its actions say just the opposite
Are the Texans about to make history?
It increasingly feels like it. Houston’s NFL team never rebuilt under Bill O’Brien. Or Gary Kubiak. Or Dom Capers, who took over an expansion franchise way back in 2002 and has now faded into ancient Texans history as the team’s 20th season approaches.
It’s the perfect time for a huge celebration, right?
As if.
The way 2021 is going, the Texans will end up placing a huge, colorful collection of balloons in the shape of “20” in front of NRG Stadium. Then decorate the special anniversary with 20 black-and-white “REBUILD!” signs.
Finally giving in and trading 25-year-old franchise quarterback Deshaun Watson for a Herschel Walker-like return will tell the football world that the Texans are rebuilding for the first time in team history. But right now, Cal McNair, Jack Easterby and Co. appear to be going through some weird form of public denial.
When the Zoom lens is recording and the microphone is switched on, the Texans insist that they are committed to excellence and bringing Super Bowl championships for the first time to this great city.
After the fluffy stuff drifts away in the winter wind, the Texans do rebuilding things, like giving away J.J. Watt for free, getting rid of veteran center Nick Martin — overpaid but one of the only dependable players on a weak offensive line — and moving on from No. 2 running back Duke Johnson after giving up a thirdround pick to acquire him just two years ago.
A serious playoff contender with Watson as its locked-in starting QB wouldn’t hesitate to bring back unpredictable No. 1 wide receiver Will Fuller, believing any potential downside would be burned away by Fuller’s speed, weekly big-play potential and thrilling touchdown connections with D4.
The Chronicle reported this week that Fuller is likely to hit the open market when free agency begins, giving Watson one more reason to never play for the Texans again.
The Jeff Luhnow-Jim Crane Astros engineered a historic rebuild that eventually created a golden era for baseball in this football city once the painful 100-loss seasons were over.
The Rockets entered Saturday as losers of 10 straight games and one of the worst teams in the NBA. But they were a Chris Paul
hamstring away from reaching the NBA Finals just three seasons ago and were able to sell a large haul of future first-round draft picks to fans the moment that a temporarily declining James Harden was shipped out of Toyota Center.
The Astros always had a plan, even when a sign-stealing scandal drastically changed the original plan.
The Rockets kept altering, adapting and tweaking under
former general manager Daryl Morey and are now staring at the potential of a new era under first-year GM Rafael Stone.
The Texans are … getting rid of their best players and cutting costs everywhere, while insisting that Watson is going nowhere?
Nothing about that previous sentence makes NFL sense.
Unless you’re completely rebuilding and maximizing Watson’s trade market until you also get rid of him.
The last time that I was allowed to ask McNair a football question, he intentionally talked around the team’s dysfunction and the endless frustration of fans by replying with a wallbuilding analogy.
I thought walls went out of fashion last November.
But what do I know?
“Maybe you’ve heard this before, but it’s going to be brick by brick,” McNair said Jan. 8, a day after Watson’s mounting frustration with the Texans was leaked to the media. “We’re going to pick up a brick, put it down, put it down in the right place, put the mortar around it, make sure it’s set, make a great decision. Then we’re going to go to the next one, and it’s going to be day by day, making great decisions, getting this thing exactly where we want it, knowing that we’re not far off from where we were.”
Since then?
The Texans’ confusing construction project has had nothing to do with creating a 2021 (or ’22) Super Bowl contender and everything in common with contemporary Houston architecture.
The Texans look like a teardown with the electric buzz of free agency just two weeks away.
The team that lost its last five games last season — and finished with a 4-12 record that tied for the third-worst in the NFL — freely gave away its best defender and a highly respected lockerroom leader. Watt has spent his post-Texans life being pursued by multiple contenders and could receive a new contract worth $16 million a year, according to
ESPN.
Watt was set to make $17.5 million with the Texans in 2021. The fact that a franchise still trying to keep Watson in red and blue didn’t receive anything in return for Watt is even more stunning two weeks later.
A true teardown is long overdue. Watching new GM Nick Caserio deconstruct everything, then build a new world back together, would be interesting — if Caserio is allowed to go all-in and do the modern job the right way without top-down interference.
It’s hard to have a clean slate when someone else keeps scribbling messy things on the drawing board.
This team should be loading up on future draft picks and moving on from overpriced veterans (David Johnson, Whitney Mercilus, Randall Cobb, Bradley Roby). But the Texans’ salary-cap mess will take years to normalize, and first-year head coach David Culley might never get a chance to stand on level ground.
It looks like the Texans are rebuilding.
It feels like the Texans are rebuilding.
But until the Texans admit that they are rebuilding for the first time in team history, they’ll keep being a 135-169 franchise that Watson doesn’t want to play for.