The Houston Texans won’t have as much cap space when free agency starts

The Houston Texans are a team that may have a lot of money to spend this offseason. The team is projected to have around $57 million to play with this offseason according to Over The Cap, and because of such a large figure, the fandom and the media at large have them targeting all sorts of high-level players, from Stefon Diggs to Mike Evans to Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry. Yet, it’s important to note that they aren’t going to have $57 million to spend.

Not this offseason anyway. See, the Texans have a few major free agents that they’re going to want to at least think about bringing back, names like Jonathan Greenard, Blake Cashman, Steven Nelson, and Denzel Perryman made up important parts of the defense. Greenard led the team in sacks and Cashman was easily the best linebacker they had all season.

They’re all free agents this year, on top of a bunch of other players. The Texans can’t afford to let them all walk. If they did, they’d have to replace them in free agency or in the draft. Sure, they could trade for a replacement at a position or two but you’re giving up capital in that scenario, so even then you have limited resources.

It’s obvious the Texans can’t bring them all back while improving the roster, so decisions have to be made, but the team should at least consider spending half of their cap on bringing back key players, specifically Greenard, Cashman, and late-season addition Derek Barnett. The Texans’ defense is starting to look pretty prolific, but if they lose too many key pieces, who are in their prime, they will have a hard time replacing them so easily.

Guys like Rankins, Perryman, and Nelson are expendable, but the team may want to find a way to bring back Schultz and Singeltary, even if Singeltary isn’t the number one option, he’s clearly an upgrade over Dameon Pierce.

Picking and choosing who to go retain is going to be crucial for managing the cap space going forward.