LAYING LOW
The Texans are biding their time in free agency waiting on Tony Romo.
Thus far, this offseason has been the quietest on record for the Texans. • Never have they gone this long into the free agency period without signing a player who played on another team the previous season. • Do they think they are good to go? Hardly. Especially after learning they were good enough to get sent home from the playoffs with relative ease by the Patriots. • But they aren’t panicking either. • After all, their first game is still almost six months away. • This lack of activity isn’t about the salary cap, either. Thanks in part to the Brock Osweiler salary dump, er, trade to Cleveland, the Texans are in the NFL’s top 10 as far as cap space goes.
Simply, the Texans are waiting to make a move because there really hasn’t been a major move on the table for them to make.
With the Texans’ history of major moves, patience is probably a good thing.
Were my offspring’s inheritance directly affected by free-agent signings, as is the case with Bob McNair, I’d be reluctant to sign a high-dollar contract presented to me by general manager Rick Smith and head coach Bill O’Brien.
In fact, I’d have a picture of me and Osweiler sporting the same dorky red tie with the Texans’ logo polka-dotted all over it as my screensaver, just to remind me of the day I agreed to fork over $21 million to a guy who will go down as one of the worst free-agent signings in NFL history.
McNair is fortunate that number was reduced from $37 million, thanks to the aforementioned Browns trade, which also cost the Texans a secondround draft pick.
One big move left
All that said, the Texans’ inactivity thus far isn’t even about Smith and O’Brien’s reluctance to knock on McNair’s door with another get-poorquick scheme.
Besides a trade up in the draft, there is only one major move to be made, and that would be signing the soon-tobe-released Tony Romo.
No team is going to trade for the veteran quarterback. Eventually, the Cowboys have to release him. When they do, the Texans will be waiting.
Despite the negatives — Romo turns 37 a month from now, has suffered serious injuries in the last two seasons, and his occasional reckless play (less so late in his career) is in contrast to what O’Brien wants from a QB — Romo would be the biggest move Houston can make this offseason. And they want this. Big-time. Don’t buy into the leak dripping out of the Texans front offices that the coaches are soooo in love with Tom Savage.
The same Tom Savage who has been in the NFL for three seasons and has thrown the same number of touchdown passes as you and I have?
Give me a break.
That couldn’t be a more obvious smokescreen if the Texans’ source actually brought out the smoke machine used for pregame entry at NRG Stadium to help spread the rumor.
Seriously. All of a sudden the Texans’ coaches are willing to go into the season with Savage as their starter?
Where was this optimism in 2015, when they thought Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett were better?
Where was this optimism just a year ago, when they talked McNair into signing Osweiler, a move that was the NFL free agency equivalent of setting a pile of money on fire?
Quarterbacks in the NFL are in high demand and short supply, but if the Texans already had a franchise quarterback in Savage, whom they drafted in the fourth round three years ago, McNair would have held on to that $21 million.
Word that the Texans plan to draft a quarterback in the first round, might not be as much of a fake out as the Savage tall tale. Either way, it doesn’t hurt.
Silence could be forgotten
Sitting with the 25th pick in a draft that isn’t loaded with top-10 quarterback talent, the Texans could reasonably expect their favorite collegiate pass-thrower might fall to them, or at least close enough to them that they can trade to go get him.
Or maybe they hope to entice a team below them to pay a price to move above the Texans’ slot, thus keeping another player alive on the draft board.
If the Texans come away from free agency and the draft with Romo and a first-round pick to groom as their quarterback of the future, their relative silence in the first couple weeks of free agency won’t be remembered.
If they end up with Savage starting at quarterback, one would have to wonder if they ever had a plan.
Give them the benefit of the doubt for now, because though there is plenty of work to be done. And there remains a lot of time to do it.