Texans GM navigates 1st draft without early picks
HOUSTON— Houston Texans general manager Brian Gaine has quite a challenge as he prepares for his first draft with the team.
He enters Thursday looking to upgrade a team that went 4-12 last season and has no picks in the first two rounds. Instead of worrying about the picks Houston doesn’t have, Gaine is focused on how he can get the most out of the four picks the Texans own in the third and fourth rounds.
“Although they might not be player 50 or 60, we’re still
going to get four players in the top 103,” Gaine said. “So, we’re very positive that we’ll be able to get contributing players at any one of those picks in the third and the fourth round.”
The Texans don’t have a first-round pick for the first time in franchise history. They traded away this year’s choice to Cleveland to get quarterback Deshaun Watson with the 12th overall pick in last year’s draft. They previously sent their second-round pick in this draft to the Browns as part of the deal to get rid of Brock Osweiler.
Houston’s first pick will be No. 68, and it received the 80th pick from Seattle in the trade for left tackle Duane Brown. Houston got the 98th selection in the third round as a compensatory pick for A.J. Bouye signing with the Jaguars last year.
The Texans have one fourth-rounder, three picks in the sixth round and a seventh-round selection this year.
Gaine wouldn’t rule out trading up if they really like a player, but it doesn’t seem likely.
“If there’s a certain player that’s falling down on the board that we had a very good grade on, certainly we’re always going to talk about that scenario if we have the ammunition and the latitude to go up,” he said. “I would tell you, historically, I would much prefer to go down than I ever would to go up, to get more at-bats, to accumulate more good players.”