As FanSided's own Lior Lampert astutely pointed out earlier this week, the Houston Texans are in a position where they can open up $72 million of cap space without having to cut a single player ahead of the start of free agency. By simply restructuring deals and moving some money around, Houston's free agency outlook could look a whole lot rosier than it does presently.
However, this is the time on the NFL calendar where teams all around the league get involved in an annual arms race so to speak. Heading into free agency, the name of the game is creating cap space, and right now, the Texans have very little cap space to speak of. In fact, according to Over The Cap, the Texans are in the bottom ten in terms of cap space heading into the offseason. So even if Houston manages to create all of that cap space without cutting a single player, it's likely that there will be a few cap casualties in Houston in the coming weeks and months.
By cutting three players in particular, the Texans could carve out an addition $18 million of cap space moving forward. These three players range from someone who was one of Houston's most reliable weapons offensively (Dalton Schultz) to a rotational piece of the defensive line (Mario Edwards) to someone who missed the entire 2025 season with an injury that we still have a whole lot of questions about (Joe Mixon).
Mixon's return to the Texans feels remarkably far-fetched at this point, not only because Houston can trim $8 million off of their books by cutting the former Pro Bowl running back before June 1st, but also because there seems to be some optimism that Woody Marks will be ready for a larger role in 2026 while it remains uncertain if Mixon will even be ready to take the field.
Although cutting Mario Edwards would only save Houston $4.4 million, every dollar ends up counting and Edwards was mostly an afterthought for the Texans this season, playing only 33 percent of Houston's defensive snaps.
Dalton Schultz would be by far the most difficult cut to have to stomach. He's built a solid foundation of trust with CJ Stroud and is coming off of the best season of his Texans tenure. As Lior Lampert pointed out, Houston could simply decide to restructure Schultz's deal and still save nearly as much money as they would if he was cut. I'm not a cap expert by any means -- hell, I wasn't even that good at math in high school -- but this seems like the preferred scenario if you're a Texans fan.
By shedding Mixon's and Edwards' salaries, and partaking in all of the financial chicanery of restructuring deals, the Texans could end up with close to $90 million of cap space that they don't have currently.