We have a habit of constructing narratives around singular moments such as the Houston Texans’ blowout win over the Cleveland Browns on Saturday night, to give the games a little more heft. But, I’ll spare you the take that Texans GM Nick Caserio was the true genius behind the Patriot Way or that his 2023 draft was one of the great coups in NFL history. These moments tend to be fleeting, and three years from now, we could be debating whether the Texans should pick up C.J. Stroud’s fifth-year option.
We have no idea what the future might hold. The NFL is strange like that.
But here’s a truth coming out of the wild-card round that I find to be irrefutable: Houston’s win should forever destroy the blockbuster quarterback trade. The backbone of this Texans team was generated via the Deshaun Watson deal, the dividends of which are still being paid out. Houston was able to net players such as Dameon Pierce, Tank Dell, Will Anderson Jr. and Kenyon Green, and those selections allowed them, by proxy, to utilize their own capital to pick both Stroud and Derek Stingley Jr. There are still another two picks in the 2024 draft, one in the first round, that Houston has to play with.
