Five way too-early free agent targets for the Houston Texans

The state of the Houston Texans’ franchise is in disrepair.

Whether you want to blame Bill O’Brien or Jack Easterby, the reality is that the Houston Texans as a football team just flat-out stink. Eight straight losses and no relief in sight make one wonder when things are going to get better.

When the new league year kicks off next March with free agency, the Texans will get the chance to help alleviate the headache-heavy pain that they’ve put themselves and their fanbase through. With 35 expiring contracts, could the Houston Texans let most of them walk?

This is not what Nick Caserio, Houston’s General Manager had in mind when he signed all of these players in the offseason. So how “Caserio” would it be to bring in another 20-25 free agents and hope for the best? The answer to that question is “very”, as it’s a realistic chance Caserio and David Culley turn everything over and start fresh.

Going into 2022 the Texans rank 13th in terms of most cap space, with just over $43M, per Spotrac. Another way to gain a big amount of cap space would come from cutting Deshaun Watson.

That last linked article goes into more of how a potential cut of Watson would work. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll stay with the near-$43M that the Texans have. These players are ranked in no particular order, just ones that could make an instant impact and could have a realistic shot of signing with Houston.