The Offseason Champions! (6th Best Offseason)
Summary: This is the first piece of six covering the NFL’s Offseason Champions. Each piece will dissect a singular teams offseason prior to the 2025 NFL Draft.
The Texans Retool and Rekindle For an Illustrious Future.
As the Texans took a step back and looked over their 2024 season the first thing they sought to address was the dreadful year put together by their offensive line. Former All-Pro tackle Laremy Tunsil had his worst season to date leading the league in penalties, killing many drives for CJ Stroud and company. Despite his struggles the Texans capitalized on his elite pass protection and sent him to the Commanders in exchange for a third and seventh round pick in 2025, as well as Washington’s fourth plus second round pick in 2026. Four draft picks for a guy who was detrimental to your team is quite a haul. Then the Texans did the unthinkable and somehow turned Howie Roseman’s obsession with bringing in project lineman into a baffling trade. Turning a pretty pitiful Kenyon Green at offensive guard into CJGJ. Green was a liability on all fronts and although he is young he’s just not an NFL ready lineman in the slightest. Houston receiving a ball hawk safety that significantly strengthens their secondary for a guy who doesn’t even have the fundamentals to play guard is highway robbery. Gardner-Johnson might have some attitude problems shown most clearly during his rough stint with Detroit, but he’s definitely a plug and play shutdown safety. Following the offensive line dilemma came the void left by injury in their wide receiver room.
The Texans would go the route of poaching a significant talent at a negligible price by trading for Christian Kirk. With Diggs now leaving Houston for New England after tearing his ACL halfway through last season and Dell sustaining an injury to end 2024 that was so gruesome he might miss the entirety of 2025, the need was apparent. The team decided to give a seventh round pick to Jacksonville to acquire Kirk for the last year of his $72 million contract. The move was simply to prevent other teams from getting Kirk considering the Jags were likely going to release him. This trade is a homerun. Kirk can play the role Tank Dell did with certain reliability. He doesn’t drop passes, can create home run plays, and probably is incredibly grateful to have CJ Stroud distributing him the football. He is 28 years old and with Stroud’s remarkable accuracy it isn’t hard to envision a career year for Kirk so long as the Texans can protect Stroud. Slivers of separation are good enough whenever Stroud releases a pass, which leads me to believe Kirk will surpass both 100 targets and 1,000 yards. Then at 29 years of age he’ll receive a sizable contract in 2026 considering he has had no significant lower body injuries and has shown he can produce.
The last incremental move Houston made was giving Darell Taylor, a pass rush specialist, a one year deal for $4,750,000. He struggles mightily against the run and hasn’t found his footing yet in the NFL, but he has some serious burst as an edge. He can be deployed situationally for obvious passing downs. With former Texans linebacker Demeco Ryans as his head coach, maybe he can reach the potential he hasn’t quite reached in Seattle and Chicago. Taylor regressed last year in Chicago from his promising start in Seattle, but if there’s one thing that can save him it’s Demeco’s elite defensive knowledge. When Demeco worked with Jonathan Greenard in Houston he became a monster overnight and maybe Darell Taylor can wake up under his guidance. He is buried behind Will Anderson Jr. along with Danielle Hunter at edge, but is a pass rush depth piece that is most definitely worth monitoring as the season unfolds.
