Texans Trade Tytus Howard — Here’s Why It Makes Sense

0:00Hey guys, Garrett Williams, AKA Texans commenter here. And early this morning, we got some breaking news from the Texans old Nick Kiserio was cooking per usual, you know, the Monday after the combine and around seven AM. You get notification that the Texans have traded tightest Howard to the Cleveland Browns for a fifth round pick. This may come as pretty shocking to most. I am so much shocked, but I, you know, as we talked about a lot of the lives here and shows that we've had, something that I'm not totally surprised by, I mean, given the fact that we traded layer me tonsil last year. But as far as this video goes, I know in the past when I've done these standalone videos, I've started to edit them and make them, you know, super neat. I'm gonna try my style of where I just do one rip right here and it's more of like a live where it's more authentic and kind of interactive, even though you can't really interact live, but that being said,

1:00the way that I would do it is I'm gonna go to my timeline on X and kind of just go through the whole thing there. So if you can just bear with me for one second, I'll get that pulled up. But, you know, there's a lot of thoughts and these moves are fun to me because, you know, there's reactions where you wanna try and, you know, digest all the information and as time goes on, you kind of understand it. I mean, I know last year with the layer me tonsil trade, that was a big deal for me. The way I digested that last year with layer me tonsil, I was extremely shocked. We were all shocked and I was actually upset with the trade last year, but when I sat down and looked at it, it made sense. So last year, traded layer me tonsil, the immediate logic for myself and I'm sure many others was, why would you trade the best offensive linemen on your one of the worst aligns in the league and now it's got even worse. But when you looked at it, you know, I know there was a big emphasis by Demiko Ryan's

2:01that off season on improving the culture of the offensive line. I know that was something many fans wanted it. It felt like, you know, just little things like the old line wasn't, you know, picking up the quarterback when they got hurt or when he got hit and, you know, was down on the ground. It just seemed like the mentality, you know, wasn't quite like that dog mentality. You'd like to see up front. So a lot of people accredited it to that, but to me, it was almost all a cap, casualty move. He was our biggest cap hit by far in the high 20 million per year with years remaining. So, you know, when you go back and look at it, that was the big part of it and he was going to want an extension. So that was Nick Casero, my opinion, forward thinking. Knowing in the future, you have a bunch of guys you're going to have to pay and now you have this left tackle that you're going to already paying and who's going to want to get paid more. So you might as well get out in front of it and get something for it now, which is what I thought he did.

3:02So that was, you know, for me, it took a while to digest. And, you know, once you look at it, it made sense. I would say it did feel like they didn't really have a plan afterwards, which was kind of frustrating. But, you know, that's kind of the way Nick Casero operates is just figure it out, you know, optionality, flexibility. But with this Titus Howard one, so one, you know, I wrote an article about potential ways to save money in cap and Titus Howard was a guy that was interesting because you could save money via restructure, via an extension. Or obviously if you cut or trade him. And restructure, you know, didn't quite make sense because you had done it in previous years and you already had a bunch of void years. So you didn't want to kind of, you know, tap that out to the full amount. Extension to me didn't make sense. I would not want to extend him. And I've been, as I said before,

4:02I've been a huge advocate for Titus Howard. I feel like he's been unfairly criticized and underappreciated. Obviously his biggest asset to the team has been his versatility, you know, playing right tackle, left guard, right guard, left tackle. And even just last year, we started the year at right guard. Injury happened, got kicked a left guard. And that's when Ending Room got into right guard and all of a sudden we had our best five. But, you know, even in the playoff game, Trent Brown comes, you know, late in the year, Trent Brown comes back that pushes Titus back to left guard. And that's when we started playing well. But then for the Patriots game, Trent Brown can't go. So now Titus goes to right tackle and that allows Paterson to go left guard. So just from that alone, he was very valuable. But I do think he was an above average player. I don't think he was elite. But, you know, he also was thrust into that leadership role when Laramie Tonsol was traded last year. And I thought he did really well. So I think it's worth noting that he deserves his praise

5:04and we should show appreciation for him. But that being said, you know, this also shows that Nick Casserio and Demiko Ryan's are willing to do whatever. In consecutive years, they've gotten rid of Laramie Tonsol, you know, Pro Bowl, one of the top tackles in the game. Got rid of him because it made sense for the team currently and in the future. Same thing with Titus Howard now. He's now your best alignment viable to the team. I believe he was a team captain. So as far as the other remaining ways of save money, you know, you're not gonna extend him. Like he's, I mentioned all those things about him. He's great, but he's aging. His contract's already up there. His floor is already set. He's gonna want X amount more. We have, you know, a bunch of other positions to play. And it seems like they've already kind of signaled they're trying to, you know, shed this, you know, structure of the O-line by drafting Blake Fisher and now drafting Ariante Ercery. And so to me, an extension never made sense. So my opinion was they should just let him stand pad

6:08and play it out. But I did note I would not be surprised if they explored a trade. It doesn't make the most sense financially. As Texans cap noted on Twitter, this created $18 million in cash savings, a 4.22 million in initial cap savings for this year, $3.21 million in net cap savings. But this is the one that's gonna freak a lot of people out and I understand 23.69 million in dead money. So when I was going through, you go to over the cap, you can see, or even on my Texans cap calculator on my website, you can see, you know, the different moves and what that would correspond with. There's, you know, pre-June first trade and post-June first trade. This is obviously a pre-June first trade. My understanding the post-June first trades are very rare. But if you were happened to do it post-June first, you would have been able to spread that money across and save more money. So yes, the dead money stings. But the other big element of this is, you got a fifth round pick and return from the Browns

7:10and the fifth round pick that you got was a pick that they got from the Raiders. So what does that mean? You have the first pick of the fifth round. So basically a late fourth. And as I alluded to, two, some people think that may not be enough, but Titus Howard is aging. He only has one year left on his contract and is wanting an extension. So, you know, there really wasn't much value in the trade, but just to kind of rewind to kind of give the exact details, the initial report. It was earlier this morning by Ian Rappaport. He says, sources, the Texans and the Browns have agreed to terms on a trade since starting right tackle Titus Howard to Cleveland in exchange for a fifth round pick. Much need to align help. Plus Howard gets a new three year, 63 million dollar extension and a deal done by Ethan Locke of first round management. And so, you know, as I decipher it, it's like, okay, we're not going to extend them. As I said, we shouldn't extend them.

8:10You know, you could let them stand pat, but then you get no value and he may be frustrated. And so, my analysis was this. It says, my guess is Titus wanted an extension and the Texans weren't willing to meet the number. He and his agent were looking for. Houston gets a fifth and saves 4.2 million of capsis space this year as well as cash savings. And I said, if I'm Titus, I'm happy. Instead of playing out a contract year and risking entry before a fragency, he just secured a solid extension. So, you know, obviously the guarantee would be part of that too, but like, that's a big part of it, like not going into a contract year. And then later, Aaron Wilson reported, I wasn't surprised that Titus Howard on the trade to the Browns. He said, they're trying to get younger and pay some guys. I ain't mad. I kind of knew it was going to happen. So I'm sure that's part of it, but I'm sure he wouldn't say it too, but like he probably, you know, I would assume that he got to like, essentially sign off on this. It's just the way Nick Casero is a speculation. The way he operates, he does good by players.

9:12He probably, you know, said, hey, we can extend you. If you want an extension, we can trade you. And, you know, his agent, quote, tweeted the thing and said, boom, like he's celebrating it. Like he got him, he got his client paid. So I mean, you have to look at it through that lens, but I do get, I'm working on an article now. I did write an article. If you go to my site right here, on the actual, you know, news itself, but I'm working on one now that is more so the fallout and what's to come. One, I did write an article on the news, kind of covering what we're talking about here, but, you know, include some social media stuff and different numbers as well. But I'm also going to be working on an article that kind of goes through the options that are ahead, which I'll kind of get into right now, you know, just initially, okay, now what? Now, before the trade, there was a debate about Titus at left guard or right tackle. I thought that they're going to play him at left guard. So this saved me a deep dive analysis on that by trading him before I could get that out. But regardless, I mean, you know,

10:13you already needed to, adding him to free agent so you needed a right guard. It sounds like they wanted to upgrade at center, which Demiko Ryan's, it sounds like they wanted to upgrade at center, which has been reports and Nika Serio at the combine said that they'd be open to improving that position. And so, again, I'm just going to briefly touch on this. I plan on doing another video later in the week as well as articles of what we can do for the O-Line Room, potential targets. There's clips of Kiserio and Demiko saying we need to improve the O-Line essentially. But back to what I was saying, I wasn't surprised. I wrote an article. If you want, you can check it out. This article is still relevant. I wrote an article saying, ways you can create savings via restructors and extensions. And I went through all the eligible options and kind of laid out my case for each. But a snippet that I had here for Titus Howard was,

11:16and then there's the wild card, Nika Serio, the tonsil trade last year proves Houston is willing to make bold moves at the value of lines. I'm not saying they should trade Howard or that they will, but we cannot rule it out given Kiserio's track record. Depending on pre-June 1 versus post-June 1 trade mechanics, the savings may or may not justify the move anyway. So I am mildly surprised, but not totally surprised by it. On my site, I do have a Texans cap calculator. This number now minus 7.7 million, obviously will decrease by roughly 4.2 million with the savings of trading Titus Howard. But as you go through, there's gonna be options. I mean, now I would start to expect a lot of restructures, extensions, all that good stuff, to really start getting this number in the green. I mean, as you do it, you can see it go up automatically. It's got advanced features. You also have the free agents from the Texans. You can choose a resign or not, and at the end you can get a report card. So feel free to check that out right there. To now, the potential moves to be made to build this vacancy, D.J. Bienneme with ESPN said,

12:17there had been some league whispers that Ariante Urcery might get moved to right tackle. So maybe this created the gateway towards it. Still, Howard was a super valuable piece. I agree, obviously they use a valuable piece, but yeah, I mean, that could be the case. I wouldn't rule anything out. They have shown to have an open mind, versatility, moving guys around. Obviously, I know a lot of people will probably read that and say, please don't move Urcery, rookie left tackle to right tackle. I wouldn't think that they would, but that's definitely an option. But first things that come to mind, they've been rumored to be wanting to sign Raiden Smith, free agent right tackle from the Colts. That would fill that spot. And then far as replacing other positions via Fragency, there's plenty of veteran, interior offensive lineman, Joel Betonio, Aliina from the Browns, Wyatt Teller, Aliina from the Browns. Both guys that I would be a static to land. I know people think they're aging, which is true, but I mean, if you get them to a short term deal, you get guys that are proven that can come in there

13:19and do good for you. Kevin Zitler would kind of fit that bill as well. There's some flyers you can take on guys like James Daniels, who's shown upside, but had injuries. There's other guys that are potentially going to be cut or traded. McCuy Bechtin would be a by-low potential high upside guy. And so you wonder on the interior, are they going to try to get these bigger guys running this heavy inside duo gap scheme? So, and so if you're still stressing or freaking out, my advice to you would be just to say, just let it play out. I mean, or even just look back to last year when the letter me tonsil trade happened, it seemed like the sky was falling and it was a terrible move. And then all the moves there after were very questionable, the black luster signings of edding room, Trent Brown, Cam Robinson, et cetera. And then the draft, really not getting that many pieces, but I would say that given all that, it still turned out to be a better align than the year before. And I would say also too, they may have more money to spend free agency this year.

14:20And Demiko Ryan's has personally signaled himself that this needs to be addressed. So, you know, cross our fingers and they're still hope, but big news, I wouldn't, this is probably just the beginning. And at the very least, as a Texans fan, you got to say it's fun to be a Texans fan the offseason because Nick Cicero, you never know what he's going to do. Until next time, we blessing.