Free Agency: Welcome to Houston
• Bradley Roby, CB: The signing of Bradley Roby was key as he replaces Kareem Jackson, whom the Texans let go after Jackson spent nine seasons with the franchise. It will be tough to replace all of the experience Jackson had, but Roby joins the Texans after spending the past five seasons with the Denver Broncos. Roby has made 29 regular-season starts and played in 79 games, where he has 60 passes defensed, seven career interceptions and seven forced fumbles.
• Tashaun Gipson, FS: This will be the eighth season in the NFL for Tashaun Gipson, as he played four seasons with the Cleveland Browns and three with the Jacksonville Jaguars. In those seven seasons, Gipson has played in 98 regular-season games with 90 starts, plus he’s played in three playoff games. Gipson enters the 2019 season replacing Tyrann Mathieu, who left the Texans for the Kansas City Chiefs in free agency. For his career, Gipson has 39 passes defensed, 20 interceptions, two touchdowns, one forced fumble and 394 tackles (287 solo).
• Briean Boddy-Calhoun, S: Another safety signed by the Texans was Briean Boddy-Calhoun, who has three previous seasons of NFL experience with the Cleveland Browns. He joins the Texans’ safety rotation and a defense that needed more at safety. In Boddy-Calhoun’s three seasons (43 games, 22 starts) has made three interceptions (all his rookie year of 2016), plus 19 passes defensed, one forced fumble, one sack, two tackles for loss and even five QB hits. Boddy-Calhoun is coming off a season with two passes defensed, one forced fumble and 56 tackles.
• Darren Fells, TE: With five years of experience while playing for teams such as the Arizona Cardinals, Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns, Darren Fells joins the Texans with 70 games played, 48 which are regular-season starts. Also for Fells, he has amassed 68 career receptions (98 targets) for 830 yards and 10 touchdowns. In 2018 with the Browns, Fells made 11 starts (played in all 16 games) with 11 receptions for 117 yards and three touchdowns.
• A.J. McCarron, QB: The Texans have a new member to their quarterback trio with A.J. McCarron being signed to a one-year deal to back up Deshaun Watson. Having McCarron over Brandon Weeden will be different, but he’s younger and there is more potential with him, so it will be interesting to see how well he works with the Houston offense.
• Matt Kalil, OT: This is another signing that might not be super exciting, but he does have NFL experience, though he did miss the entire NFL season in 2018 with a knee injury suffered during the preseason. It will be something to watch to see how Kalil recovers from his injury suffered a season ago.