A HELPING HAND
Trade for Broncos’ Thomas provides a proven reinforcement at receiver
Instead of standing still at the NFL trade deadline Tuesday, the Texans ran an aggressive fly pattern to trade for veteran Pro Bowl wide receiver Demaryius Thomas.
The move engineered by Texans general manager Brian Gaine was made out of necessity and an organizational desire to keep defenses honest and not be as prone to concentrate solely on wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
Trading a 2019 fourth-round draft pick for Thomas in addition to exchanging seventhround selections, the Texans had been looking for reinforcements since starting wide receiver Will Fuller tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee last Thursday against the Miami Dolphins.
Fuller was placed on injured reserve Tuesday. He’s expected to make a full recovery in six to nine months.
The message of how serious the Texans are about competing this season resonated inside their locker room.
“I think it says they want to win right now,” safety Tyrann Mathieu said. “Obviously, that speaks volumes in our locker room. I think it’s important to try to add pieces to help your team win.”
With rookie Keke Coutee primarily a slot receiver and prone to hamstring issues and not much other depth at receiver, the Texans were motivated to land Thomas. In first place in the AFC South and on a fivegame winning streak, the Texans didn’t want to take a step backward as they push for a division title and playoff berth.
“I think it was awesome,” Hopkins said. “I think Demaryius brings a lot of skill to this team and a lot of experience to the NFL. Great guy off the field. I’ve trained with him before. I was excited, of course, knowing Demaryius, the kind of person he is, not just a player, what he brings to this locker room.” Banner-worthy career
Thomas, 30, is a big, experienced and accomplished downfield target. At 6-3, 229 pounds, Thomas has been named to five Pro Bowls. The former firstround draft pick from Georgia Tech has caught 36 passes for 402 yards and three touchdowns this season.
Coincidentally, Thomas will line up against his former NFL employer Sunday at Denver, where an image of him is hanging on a large banner at Broncos Stadium at Mile High.
“I’ve been watching him for a long time, since he was at Georgia Tech and since he’s been in the NFL,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said . “Excellent athletic skills, great hands, really good route runner. He’s a tough guy to defend.”
In nine NFL seasons, Thomas has caught 665 career passes for 9,055 yards and 60 touchdowns. He ranks second behind Rod Smith in Broncos history for receiving yards and touchdowns.
Since entering the NFL in 2010, Thomas ranks third in the NFL in catches and yards and eighth in TD catches. He has at least 75 catches and 900 yards for six straight years, the longest active steak in the NFL.
Thomas became expendable in Denver with the arrival of rookie wide receiver Courtland Sutton, who played in high school at Brenham and in college at SMU.
“We were not hellbent on trading Demaryius,” Broncos general manager John Elway said. “We thought that with the young guys behind him that we could make up for the space that he would leave. We got the value that we thought was fair, and that was the most important thing.
“It’s never easy when you trade a guy that’s been a household name here for a long time and done a lot of great things. Plus, it’s a good spot for Demaryius. He’s going to a good football team that’s in a pennant race where he’s going. It’ll be good for him, too.”
Thomas’ departure didn’t come as a surprise to him. With rumors surrounding him Sunday night, Thomas told Denver reporters it was upsetting following a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
“How would you feel at your job (if) your boss, whoever, said they wanted you someplace else?” Thomas said. “And you come into work every day and have to think about it? But I had to do it for my team, like it was normal, act like it was normal. It just kept coming up, from left and right.”
Now, Thomas is a Texan. Only four players in the NFL have at least 6,000 receiving yards and 40 touchdown catches since 2013: Thomas, Hopkins, Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown and Cincinnati’s A.J. Green. Minimal draft impact
Thomas is playing under a five-year, $70 million contract with a $4.5 million base salary for the remainder of this season. He’s due a nonguaranteed $14 million base salary next year. Whether Thomas will play for the Texans next season and under that contract arrangement remains to be determined. The Texans can release Thomas without owing him any more money or having their salary cap impacted.
For now, they’re simply happy to have added a proven receiver to their depth chart ahead of rookie Vyncint Smith and specialteams contributor Sammie Coates. And it didn’t cost them that much in terms of draft currency. The Texans still have six draft picks overall and three selections in the first two rounds.
Elway said he was talking to three or four teams about Thomas. Elway, whose Broncos are 3-5, was asked if he had any reservations about trading Thomas to the Texans and then playing against him Sunday.
“I thought about it, yeah,” Elway said. “I think that ultimately we had to look past that and thought that it wouldn’t affect our game and affect the outcome of the game. We felt that we could make that move and send him to the Texans.”
Mathieu played against Thomas during his second NFL season. It didn’t go well for the Arizona Cardinals.
“He had 150 yards by halftime,” Mathieu said. “It was a long day for us. Big body, physical receiver. It will be exciting to see what he does for us this year.”