Houston Texans general manager Nick Caserio has been a busy man through the first few days of free agency.
After a couple of internal extensions to tight end Dalton Schultz, kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn and some depth players, the Caserio and company turned their to free agency and the veteran trade market. The Texans made a few small moves, a few medium moves and two massive moves as the new league year officially kicked off this week.
The Texans entered free agency with a whopping $70 million in salary cap space. When the dust settled following the first three days, Houston now has around $21 million in salary cap space, according to Over the Cap. This is as of Wednesday afternoon.
There are still some contract details that haven’t been announced, but this is more or less what Caserio will be working with for the final month and a half before the 2024 NFL draft.
Here’s a full breakdown, courtesy of @TexansCap on X:
Houston #Texans cap status update
Includes: Maliek Collins trade
Excludes: Kris Boyd, Khalil Davis, Desmond King, Folo Fatuski, David Sharpe, Tommy Townsend pic.twitter.com/sjG0QStt9M— TexansCap (@TexansCap) March 13, 2024
The biggest deals for the Texans this week were the signings of defensive end Danielle Hunter, defensive lineman Denico Autry, linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair. They accounted for $14.75 million, $8 million and $5.6 million, respectively, per Over the Cap.
Schultz’s new cap hit will be $7.9 million, while Fairbairn will count $3.62 million against the cap. Wide receiver Noah Brown, who also re-signed, will have a cap hit of $3.58 million on his new contract.
Houston also made two trades with salary cap implications. The Texans acquired running back Joe Mixon from the Cincinnati Bengals for a seventh round pick. He’ll count $6.1 million against the cap this year. Houston also traded away defensive tackle Maliek Collins, which freed up around $3.4 million in salary cap space.
More moves will undoubtably be made between now and the 2024 NFL draft. But for now, the Texans still operate with a solid bit of salary cap space after some big deals went down in free agency.