Texans 4-round mock draft, 1.0: Post-Senior Bowl edition

Following the Senior Bowl, John Crumpler unveils his latest four-round Texans mock draft.

The Super Bowl may be on Sunday but for the rest of the NFL world, it is all systems go on the offseason.

The Houston Texans have already begun work on their 2024 NFL draft class at the Reese’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., and the Shrine Bowl last week. The next event will come soon with the NFL Combine in Indianapolis at the end of the month.

Last week, the Texans Wire was on scene at the Senior Bowl and did a mock exclusively with the players who showed out at this event. Today, this mock will examine all draft eligible players for a four-round mock draft.

Buccaneers to give QB Baker Mayfield a one-year, $8.5 million deal. Grade: WTF

The Buccaneers have agreed to give Baker Mayfield a one-year deal, which does very little to solve their longer-term quarterback issues.

No matter what you think of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers acquiring former Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers, and Los Angeles Rams quarterback Baker Mayfield on a one-year, $8.5 million deal, one thing is clear: In the post-Tom Brady landscape, Todd Bowles’ team had to do something. New offensive coordinator Dave Canales, fresh off a 13-year stint on the Seattle Seahawks’ staff, has a bit of experience with mobile quarterbacks who don’t always make the best decisions. And before this move, the Bucs had a quarterback room that consisted of Blaine Gabbert and Kyle Trask.

Not exactly a perfect Brady succession plan. The Buccaneers, who will select 19th overall in the 2023 draft unless they do something to trade up, don’t really have the scratch to do so in a significant sense.

The question is whether Mayfield can be a bridge quarterback, or whether even that’s too much to ask. Last season, he was average enough with the Panthers to find himself released, but he was quite good in five games and four starts with the Rams down the stretch when Matthew Stafford got hurt. His 98-yard drive to beat the Raiders in Week 14 when he’d barely had enough time to unpack his gear, let alone get the hang of the playbook, was one of the most remarkable performances of the 2022 season.

Anatomy of a Play: How the Raiders gave Baker Mayfield an all-time improbable touchdown

Mayfield is a talented but random quarterback who can do well when shored up with 11 personnel and a heavy boot-action game. The “WTF” grade here is the same one we gave the Atlanta Falcons when they responded to their own quarterback desert by signing a similarly qualified quarterback in Taylor Heinicke when much more was needed. We have a pretty good idea what Mayfield is and what he isn’t, and that’s not enough to solve a quarterback situation that still needs a ton of solving.

Seahawks’ change in draft philosophy was out of necessity and by design

Pete Carroll and John Schneider knew they had to change their draft philosophy in 2022, and they explained it at the scouting combine.

INDIANAPOLIS — In their first five years with the Seattle Seahawks, general manager John Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll could do very little wrong. They took a team almost completely bereft of talent and, with outstanding drafts and free-agent signings, gave the franchise its first Super Bowl win, very nearly another, and created one of the most dominant defenses in NFL history.

Then, things started to go south.

In the years after Seattle’s agonizing loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX, the two men who could do virtually nothing wrong struggled to have their moves gain any positive traction. Impulsive trades (Jimmy Graham, Jamal Adams), drafts that produced precious little in terms of team-defining talent, and coaching choices that fell short of maximizing personnel had the Schneider’s and Carroll’s former Legion of Boom looking far more like a Legion of Whom.

Wholesale changes were on the horizon. The 2022 release of linebacker Bobby Wagner, and the trade of Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos looked at the time like more moves made by a staff that may not have been qualified to make them. Generally speaking, the people responsible for the need to blow a roster up and start over are not put in charge of those all-go rebuilds.

But Schneider and Carroll had built up enough equity to hold onto their positions, and it was likely that if the 2022 offseason and draft looked a lot like the last few, the faces of the Seahawks from a coaching and personnel perspective would be very different when the 2023 league year began.

Fortunately for Schneider and Carroll, and to their credit, they’ve been on the good foot ever since. The Wilson trade turned into an abject disaster for the Broncos, and a historic windfall for the Seahawks, who have the fifth, 20th, 35th, and 53rd picks in the upcoming draft. Moreover, after the 2022 draft the Seahawks put together, the fact that Schneider and Carroll are in charge of this particular process shouldn’t be cause for anxiety among Seahawks fans.

Because the 2022 draft not only saw several immediate starters, but immediate impact starters at positions that don’t generally see rookies excelling. The 2022 Seahawks became the first team since the 2009 Jacksonville Jaguars to start two rookie offensive tackles in Charles Cross and Abe Lucas from Week 1 on. Fifth-round cornerback Tariq Woolen might have grabbed the Defensive Rookie of the Year award were it not for the excellent exploits of Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner of the New York Jets. Gardner was selected fourth overall, Woolen had to wait until the 153rd pick to hear his name called. Cornerback Coby Bryant, Gardner’s college teammate at Cincinnati, provided value in the slot and outside, and Minnesota edge-rusher Boye Mafe started to become a real asset as the season went along.

Five potential long-term starters for a team that had struggled to produce five legit starters in their previous five drafts? Not a bad turnaround for a group desperately in need of such a thing.

If this seems to speak to a change in philosophy and methodology, both Carroll and Schneider confirmed that during their Tuesday media sessions at the scouting combine.

“We really wanted to get guys who could handle it,” Carroll told me when I asked him about why it worked so well this time around. “Because we knew they would have a chance to play. It was really important to us. Their character, and their confidence in themselves, the ways they came across with that… we were picking them for those spots hoping it would work out, and it did. Perfect group of guys in the makeup and the mentality that they brought to us. 

“We’re always trying to get more accurate is what we’re doing, and we really find that the character and makeup part of it was crucial, and we continue to look at that.

Schneider got even more specific about the makeup and character parts of the equation, pointing to the recent mistakes the team (and he) had made in this regard.

“Yeah… I think I talked about it before – the lessons you learn along the way,” he said, when I asked if 2022 felt like 2010 through 2012 all over again. “I’m Catholic, so I beat myself up a little bit. The mistakes I’ve made, and why. Comparing players, and purely drafting for need. Some of the background information we had on players from a confidence standpoint or a swagger standpoint weren’t necessarily able to compete with the Richard Shermans and the Kam Chancellors and the Bobby Wagners and the K.J.s [Wright]. Earl Thomas, you know what I mean? We knew we had to do a little better job in that regard [like] in 2010, ’11, ’12, picking players and building this thing. Not to sound weird or anything, but we were a damn good football team for a number of years. I heard [former NFL quarterback] Brady Quinn talking the other day where we had like 23 guys not make our team that went and played for other teams.”

As it had been early on, the focus was more on undervalued assets, as opposed to overvalued projects.

“Every year, you’re trying to balance team need, and just drafting the bast player all the way through. We knew we were going to have a hard time re-signing [left tackle] Duane [Brown}, so to be able to get a left tackle was a big deal for us. We knew we wanted to add a pass-rusher in Boye [Mafe] – acquire him and identify him, and having those two young guys [Cross and Abe Lucas] was obviously a big deal. The corners with Tariq [Woolen]; you guys haven’t seen  [Ohio State edge-rusher] Tyreke [Smith] yet, but when he practiced, he looked outstanding. He’s has some physical things going on to get right. But it was really about here we go, y’know – we’re going to be playing with… if we say we’re going to be a developmental organization, let’s do that.”

The difference, as both men said, was the focus on both now and the future. The Seahawks knew they had to stop getting cute with their personnel moves, thinking that they still had what they had built before. Now, it was about building it again, and as Carroll concluded, the architecture seems to be on point.

“Really, it was just what happened,” he said. “We didn’t create it – I’d like to say that John had it all figured out. Go draft these guys and they’ll play right away. We didn’t think of it that way, but we knew that the opportunities were there, and we could hopefully fit the guys into the spaces that were there. Its not always that easy, and it wasn’t easy,  but it certainly did happen this time around. It gave those guys a great opportunity to make enormous advances. That might have been kind of the one in the period of however long we’ve been here where an opportunity arises like that. Where we get the guys and they play right in the spots. But we’re certainly going to bank on it now.”

The Seahawks with a rock-solid plan? That could spell just as much trouble for the rest of the league as it did a decade ago.

The NFL’s best remaining free agents, from Odell Beckham Jr. on down

NFL free agents can still make a difference, even this close to the regular season. Here are the best players still on the open market, for whatever reason.

On Thursday, September 8, the NFL’s 2022 regular season officially begins when the Los Angeles Rams host the Buffalo Bills. Teams have already been busy between wrapping up their training camps, prepping for Week 1, and both waiving and claiming players based on the league’s mandated roster cuts last Tuesday.

There is one more aspect of team-building that every franchise will pay some level of attention to at this point: Are there available free agents who can help our team for the right price? There are still valuable free agents on the open market. Some are recovering from injuries, or bad seasons, or they’ve already fielded multiple offers, and they’re either weighing the best opportunity, or just waiting for training camp to end so they don’t have to deal with that.

Here are our best remaining free agents with one calendar week left to go before the regular season; don’t be surprised if the majority of these guys get snapped up somewhere before the Rams and Bills kick things off.

The NFL’s best remaining free agents

NFL free agents can still make a difference, even this close to the regular season. Here are the best players still on the open market, for whatever reason.

One week from today, the NFL’s 2022 regular season officially begins when the Los Angeles Rams host the Buffalo Bills. Teams have already been busy between wrapping up their training camps, prepping for Week 1, and both waiving and claiming players based on the league’s mandated roster cuts last Tuesday.

There is one more aspect of team-building that every franchise will pay some level of attention to at this point: Are there available free agents who can help our team for the right price? There are still valuable free agents on the open market. Some are recovering from injuries, or bad seasons, or they’ve already fielded multiple offers, and they’re either weighing the best opportunity, or just waiting for training camp to end so they don’t have to deal with that.

Here are our best remaining free agents with one calendar week left to go before the regular season; don’t be surprised if the majority of these guys get snapped up somewhere before the Rams and Bills kick things off.

Texans should consider S Landon Collins as final piece to complete the secondary

Former Washington safety Landon Collins could revitalize his career with the Houston Texans, who could still use some help in the secondary.

Entering the 2022 offseason, the Houston Texans’ secondary was one of the weakest links on the team. Their boundary corner play had been well below average in 2021 and the two most talented defensive back on the team, Justin Reid and Desmond King, were all but guaranteed to leave in free agency.

Despite running a defense that is primarily driven by its defensive lineman and linebackers, the weakness of the secondary was a major concern. That was until Nick Caserio decided it wouldn’t be. Houston invested massively in their cornerback group over the next few months.

Derek Stingley was drafted third overall, with new head coach Lovie Smith preaching that Stingley had the talent to shadow team’s best receivers every game. King was resigned to a very team-friendly contract. Steven Nelson was signed away from the Philadelphia Eagles to start at the boundary corner opposite Stingley.

Many now project that the cornerback group could be the strength of the team. This looks to be a potential great boost if Smith is to succeed at coach compared to his previous tenure in Tampa Bay. Unfortunately, there is still a glaring problem in the secondary.

The safety group is only marginally improved.

Defensive back Jalen Pitre was drafted 37th overall fin Round 2 from Baylor with many analysts projecting him to play a safety role at the next level. However, Pitre played more of a STAR role as a Bear, a cross between nickel corner and weakside linebacker, and has never been tasked with high safety coverage responsibilities before.

M.J. Stewart is a 29-year-old safety that was signed from the Cleveland Browns but he also requires some major projection to take up a larger role in Smith’s defense. Otherwise the position group went untouched during the free agency period. Caserio did a fabulous job addressing needs all around the roster but this is one that was seemingly ignored.

Entering June of the off-season, the options to upgrade are pretty limited but there is one name in particular that’s surprisingly still available.

Washington safety Landon Collins.

Collins is 28 years old and a three-time Pro Bowler with the New York Giants. He was selected 33rd overall by New York after spending three years with Nick Saban and Kirby Smart, otherwise known as the best coaches in college football.

Collins was the recipient of a record-breaking six-year, $84 million contract in the summer of 2019 to Washington before injuries ultimately disrupted both his 2020 and 2021 seasons. Despite having started all 94 games he’s played at the NFL level, Collins is still unsigned.

It would likely take a strong financial investment from Houston but he represents a chance to alleviate some major concerns in the defensive secondary. A large, one-year contract could make sense for Collins to re-establish himself before jumping on a large multi-year contract during the 2023 off-season.

He has played both free safety and strong safety over the course of his career and could seemingly settle one of the two positions full time. This would allow players like Eric Murray to focus all their efforts at one of the spots.

Collins has some history playing linebacker last season for Washington and this could serve in Houston’s favor in two ways. First, this could benefit the team as Collins could serve as a role model to Pitre with very similar play styles and more experience in the league. They’re both instinctive tacklers and Collins’ presence would offer Pitre a more direct kind of role model that isn’t currently on the roster.

Second, Houston could offer true stability to Collins. They are firmly set at the linebacker position and could assure the veteran safety he would not be asked to play outside of the defensive back group.

Finally, upgrading at safety serves to benefit the entire secondary. Stingley and Nelson can play looser and instinctively in man coverage knowing they have strong players on the back end should they get beat. Creating hesitation for opposing quarterbacks to throw over the top means more time for pass rushers Jonathan Greenard and Maliek Collins to get to the quarterback.

Nobody knows what Collins is searching for in his next team. He could have a multitude of options and be waiting to sign with a championship contender.  The market could be dry with Collins’ searching for an opportunity to prove to the league that he still is what he once was.

Houston isn’t likely winning many games in 2021. However, as they once did for Tyrann Mathieu, the Texans can offer a lifeline to Collins. A guaranteed role with a known high quality defensive head coach. In exchange for a large one-year deal for Collins while he restores his status in the NFL, Houston could acquire a player that puts every player on their secondary in a better position to succeed.

A potential win-win arrangement that could pay huge dividends to both parties without any commitment to the future. Caserio should be picking up the phone tomorrow to see if he could work salary cap magic and bring Collins to Space City.

Ex-Giants Wes Martin, Rysen John claimed off waivers

Former New York Giants, OL Wes Martin and TE Rysen Johnson, were claimed off of waivers on Wednesday.

The New York Giants waived four players on Tuesday — tight ends Rysen John and Jake Hausmann, linebacker Omari Cobb and offensive lineman Wes Martin.

For two of them, it didn’t take long to find new homes.

The Chicago Bears swooped in and quickly claimed John off of waivers.

John, 24, came to the Giants by way of Canada. A graduate of Simon Fraser, he was selected in the third round of the 2020 CFL draft. He also went unselected in the NFL draft that same year. In 2021, John signed with the Giants but did not make a regular season appearance.

Shortly before Chicago claimed John, it was announced that the Jacksonville Jaguars had claimed Martin.

Martin, 25, was originally a fourth-round pick of the Washington Redskins in the 2019 NFL draft. He spent the 2021 season with the Giants, appearing in seven games with one start.

Hausmann and Cobb went unclaimed and are now unrestricted free agents.

[listicle id=691946]

Giants waive TE Rysen John, three others

The New York Giants have waived four players, including tight ends Rysen John and Jake Hausmann.

In preparation for additional signings, which includes their 11-player draft class, the New York Giants did a little roster maneuvering on Tuesday.

The team officially announced that tight ends Rysen John and Jake Hausmann, linebacker Omari Cobb and offensive lineman Wes Martin have all been waived.

Martin, 25, was originally a fourth-round pick of the Washington Redskins in the 2019 NFL draft. He spent the 2021 season with the Giants, appearing in seven games with one start.

The 24-year-old Cobb signed with the Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted rookie out of Marshall in 2020. He spent more than a year with K.C. before signing with the Giants in September of last year. Cobb did not appear in a game for Big Blue.

John, 24, came to the Giants by way of Canada. A graduate of Simon Fraser, he was selected in the third round of the 2020 CFL draft. He also went unselected in the NFL draft that same year. In 2021, John signed with the Giants but did not make a regular season appearance.

The 24-year-old Hausmann initially signed with the Detroit Lions after going undrafted out of Ohio State in the 2021 NFL draft. However, he lasted just three months with the team before being waived. The Giants claimed him off waivers in August of last year but Hausmann didn’t see any action throughout the season.

[listicle id=691886]

Giants to release CB James Bradberry in cost-cutting measure

Unable to find a suitable trade partner, the New York Giants have decided to release cornerback James Bradberry.

The New York Giants held on as long as they possibly could, hoping the trade market for veteran cornerback James Bradberry would develop. But that did not happen and on Monday, the team was forced to cut their losses.

The Giants will release Bradberry, clearing $10.1 million from the 2022 cap but leaving them with $11.7 million in dead money, according to Dan Duggan of The Athletic.

Bradberry had signed a three-year, $43.5 million deal with the Giants in 2020 that included $32.98 million fully guaranteed. He restructured the contract last season after the team’s available space dwindled to almost nil.

A second-round pick of Dave Gettleman and the Carolina Panthers in 2016, Bradberry has established himself as one of the league’s best cover corners. He has the second-most passes defensed since 2019 and earned his first Pro Bowl nod in 2020.

In 92 career games (91 starts), Bradberry has recorded 380 tackles (303 solo, seven for a loss), three QB hits, 3.0 sacks, four forced fumbles, 82 passes defensed and 15 interceptions.

More to come…

[listicle id=691532]