Salary Cap Findings for ’22 & ’23

Hello again, comrades. I come to give you another dose of my lunch break offseason thoughts, this time with a lot less kool-aid.

So, I had the unfortunate realization that we may not light the league on fire in '22 as much as I previously thought…. because we have no money to! Some of you brought this up in other posts and y'all are right.

The Texans are broke in '22. Have a look at our positional spending per spotrac for '22.

Texans Positional Spending in 2022 as of Jan 13

Things to note and implications:

1. Our money is seriously tied up in QB. Deshaun Watson, for a lack of better words, could not be fucking us harder. Another note : "2023 salary & roster bonus fully guarantee on 3/20/2022" You may've seen that the Texans want Watson out by March. That's because if we don't move Watson by March of this year, we pay him for 2023. Watson has already fucked over our cap in 2022. Idk what exactly a trade will do regarding his 2022 salary but it doesn't seem like we can get it back.
2. Right now, we're near the bottom of the league for spending on defense. If we had any money, I imagine we'd spend it on defense– but we don't. So what will we do? I expect a heavy defensive draft to strengthen this side of the ball without breaking the bank.
3. Unless Tunsil is traded, we're probably not doing anything with the O-line. At 9th in the league for spending, you could argue we've already done too much with the O-line. Even if it's just Tunsil we're paying, we're expecting him to carry this line.
4. Another O-line bit– we don't have a true center in 2022. We will draft or sign a center.
5. Wide receiver is stable. With Cooks and Collins playing very well and not hurting us too badly financially, don't get your hopes too high up on us drafting or acquiring a star WR.
6. We aren't paying runningbacks. As of now, only Rex Burkhead, Darius Anderson, and Scottie Phillips are guaranteed to be on the roster in 2022. We may see a top college runningback drafted to Houston or another cheap FA signing.
7. We may also see a top TE drafted to Houston or cheap FA signed. We have only Brevin Jordan and Paul Quessenberry locked in for 2022.
8. Finally, not pictured above, the Texans have a ton of dead money to pay out in '22 because of some necessary cuts. It's a disgusting amount but there's nothing we can do about it. Financially speaking, Texans are bled out in '22 and rich in '23.

tl;dr: Money is tied up in Watson and cut players in 2022, so don't expect big FA signings just yet. Do expect a heavily defensive centered draft for every position. Runningback, tight end, and center could see some intriguing moves. It's going to be quite hard to win next year.

In 2023, it's kind of funny.

Signed players for 2023

Only thing to note for 2023 is that we have basically no one signed for 2023 except for Caserio's draft class and the few decent young players from BoB's regime. I don't know if there's a roster in the NFL as empty as ours in 2023, hahaha.

By the time we arrive to 2023, the team is going to look very different.

Thanks for reading!