After an 0-3 start to the season, it's understandable that the Houston Texans would be eyeing potential changes they could be making both schematically and personnel-wise, but what the franchise chose to do today comes as a relatively significant surprise.
After only three games, the Texans have decided to cut safety CJ Gardner-Johnson, who arrived in H-Town via trade only six months ago. Houston parted ways with former 2022 1st Round pick Kenyon Green as part of an exodus of 2024 starters who made up one of the league's worst offensive lines, but in return, they snagged Gardner-Johnson, who won a Super Bowl title with the Philadelphia Eagles this past February.
On Monday, Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans noted that there have been communication issues within the team's secondary. It turns out, his statement was foreshadowing of what was to come.
"When you see a big play that happens on our defense, somewhere along the lines, there's a bust in communication," Ryans said, per DJ Bien-Aime of ESPN.com. "It all starts with communication, and it hasn't been as crisp as it needs to be. We see that. We have to make some adjustments there to make sure we get it corrected."
The adjustment that the Texans felt compelled to make was, evidently, ending Gardner-Johnson's tenure prematurely. The seven-year veteran had 15 tackles in three games with the Texans. Per Pro Football Focus, Gardner-Johnson was the 36th-ranked safety in the NFL through the first three weeks of the season.
CJ Gardner-Johnson was causing problems behind the scenes
According sources of KPRC2's Aaron Wilson, it wasn't just CJ Gardner-Johnson's disappointing play that contributed to his surprising release. From the sounds of it, Gardner-Johnson was becoming too much of a headache behind the scenes for the Texans to continue to put him on the field with only mid-tier results.
"Among the issues that arose with Gardner-Johnson, per sources: criticism of teammates in the secondary, including the size of one player’s contract, complaints about his role, including a desire to blitz more frequently, and a trade request along with him making frequent comparisons to what he was accustomed to with the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl championship squad," Wilson wrote immediately following the announcement of Gardner-Johnson's release.
Perhaps it goes without saying, but that's the exact opposite sort of presence you want in your locker room when you're already in an 0-3 hole, and the last thing the Texans needed was to be dealing with the sort of noise that CJ Gardner-Johnson was making.
Fortunately for the Texans, the secondary remains a strong-suit of a defense that, despite their winless record, is still among the better units in the NFL. With young talent across the board, Houston should be able to recover just fine in CJGJ's absence.