Zach Cunningham released

[ET80]

A very special Nick Caserio special. Renegotiate the guy before the season, make his contract untradable and a huge hit against the '23 cap and then... Cut the guy.

**** this franchise. Move 'em to OKC. NOBODY knows what they're doing over there.

[Texansfan713]

I had to double check to see if I was seeing things.

 

Yeah im in agreement.  SCREW THIS FRANCHISE. 

[tab]

lmao

[tab]

must have been late to bible study, an unforgivable crime

[Texansfan713]

this move screams 100 percent Easterby.  God I cant wait till he is gone from this team or Cal McNair sells the team.  Whichever one comes first. 

[Marco79]

Caserio did way too many restructures, trying to clear cap space for this year to sign the Joe Thomas’ of the league, that will hinder them from actually making important moves in 2022. Between these terrible restructures and Caserio’s throwing away of late round picks for players who he kept on the team just for a couple of weeks, his lack of long term planning is extremely troubling for someone who is suppose to lead a rebuild.

[ET80]

35 minutes ago, Marco79 said:

Caserio did way too many restructures, trying to clear cap space for this year to sign the Joe Thomas’ of the league, that will hinder them from actually making important moves in 2022. Between these terrible restructures and Caserio’s throwing away of late round picks for players who he kept on the team just for a couple of weeks, his lack of long term planning is extremely troubling for someone who is suppose to lead a rebuild.

Exactly. This is just another move that leads me to believe that this "rebuild" is actually our normal going forward.

I'd venture to say that the Texans will lose 50+ games over the Nick Caserio era. He's destined to oversee multiple 10+ loss seasons, probably for the duration of his contract.

[Pastor Dillon]

Good to see him go. Once he got paid he started to suck on the field and apparently was always late to stuff. Sucks that we just restructured him but oh well. 
 

it’s gonna take a few years to get the BOB mistakes taken Care of. 

[ET80]

So - between Zach Cunningham ($12.8mm dead cap in 2022) Whitney Mercilius (renegotiated this past off-season, then cut - $7mm dead cap in '22) and Shaq Lawson (traded for Bernardrick McKinney in the off-season and then traded to the Jets in the preseason - $5.25mm dead cap in '22) Nick Caserio has deferred $25.05mm to dead cap for FY 2022.

[Pastor Dillon]

9 hours ago, ET80 said:

So - between Zach Cunningham ($12.8mm dead cap in 2022) Whitney Mercilius (renegotiated this past off-season, then cut - $7mm dead cap in '22) and Shaq Lawson (traded for Bernardrick McKinney in the off-season and then traded to the Jets in the preseason - $5.25mm dead cap in '22) Nick Caserio has deferred $25.05mm to dead cap for FY 2022.

My guess is that we knew those guys needed to go, and we were really tight on money in 2021 so we deferred some hits to 2022 when we have actual draft picks and some more money. 
 

the 2021 cap situation was awful. We had to clear up some funds. We have a total of 35 million in dead space next year but still have 44 million in cap space and can create a lot more from getting rid of a couple guys. 
 

if we trade Watson especially, money won’t be an issue next off season like it was this past off season. 
 

I get that y’all hate Easterby a lot but give the new GM a chance. He inherited the biggest mess you can inherit. He’s not gotten a 1st or 2nd round pick to work with. I’m gonna go on a limb and say that he didn’t make the final call in hiring our head coach or he understood the concept of a burn coach. 

[jch1911]

PD- you make some valid points.

A key note re: Zach.... Caesar salad was hired in Jan and converted Zach's contract in March (increasing said dead $$$)

If he has been such a problem the whole time and you could get $.10 on the dollar at the trade deadline.... isn't that better (from a strategic perspective) than just waiving the guy?

I know it was said that nobody wanted to trade for him, but I have to think a 2025 7th round pick was out there.

I honestly think this was a move to show the other players "who is in charge".  Which is fine... normally... but when most people think this move smacks of a "culture fit" and it raises many eyebrows.

That being said, it does seem like Zach wanted out and showed it by not showing up (even his teammates acknowledged it). 

But the question about performance always comes down to ability X motivation X resources.  The Texans don't appear to have the ability or resources to win many games.  That is impacting players' performance and Zach clearly lacked the motivation to want to be a part of the team (as did many former players).

Fix the culture.  Fire Easterbunny.  Sell to Bezos.

[ET80]

1 hour ago, jch1911 said:

I honestly think this was a move to show the other players "who is in charge".  Which is fine... normally... but when most people think this move smacks of a "culture fit" and it raises many eyebrows.

EXACTLY - and given the continued pushback from the players on the team, whatever they're doing isn't working. Culture at the expense of cohesion isn't going to rebuild anything. It's only going to fracture everything it touches, as we're seeing. Instilling an example at the expense of resources (in this case, $12.8mm of next years' cap) is asinine, you're literally cutting your nose to spite your face in this matter. 

Had this FO had the discipline necessary to properly manage, the could have found a way to make Cunningham inactive and take the appropriate action after this season ends - fine him this year, cut him at the start of next league year, when the cap hit would have been much less (maybe even as a 6/1 designation).

Ultimately, I understand the rational behind any sort of actions against Cunningham. He was habitually late, that can't be acceptable in any organization. It's a pet peeves of mine, and - dare I say - I side with the Texans on their dislike of showing up habitually late.

But... that's no excuse to operate with little logic and a lot of emotion, which is exactly what happened here. I hear a lot of "you gotta do what best for the team" from the powers that be, but "best for the team" is subjective - having $13mm in free cap is best for team, but nobody seems to figure that part into the calculus.

[ET80]

3 hours ago, Pastor Dillon said:

We have a total of 35 million in dead space next year but still have 44 million in cap space and can create a lot more from getting rid of a couple guys. 

This $44mm figure is an illusion, because we only have roughly 27 guys signed beyond this season - so that $44mm is going to evaporate quickly as we find the next round of guys like Justin Britt, Terrance Mitchell, Chris Conley, etc.

(Texans will need to sign 20 players along with their six draft picks - so you're hoping to get 20 guys willing to play for $2.2mm next season, less than $1mm over vet minimum - this is assuming the team is not extending guys like KG Hill or Maliek Collins).

A hypothetical Deshaun Watson trade only clears out $24mm (pre 6/1 designation) so that's a wash against that dead cap. (Not even a wash, it's still puts the team at $11mm dead cap).

So, in a roundabout way... Texans just killed whatever negotiating strength they had in thie Watson situation. They need to trade Watson now, not just because he's unhappy - but because it's the only way to partially clear up cap space that'll be needed to simply field 53 men. (Let's hope no criminal charges come up, because if he is indicted and can't be traded... the cap is absolutely destroyed).

As much as you want to cut dead weight, you can't because you have to pick up SOMEONE to replace them, and it's not like we have a bulk of late round picks to fill in spots on the cheap - it's the opposite in fact, we don't have an excessive amount of late round picks because Caserio traded those picks away for a bunch of guys who didn't even play 10 games with the team.

So... we're back to renegotiating guys on longer deals to free up cap space (like we did with Cunningham, Mercilius) to sign mid level guys to one year deals over rookie minimums. THIS time, there's about 1/5 of the cap dedicated to guys who will never play a down for this team.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong anywhere here - the math might be fuzzy a bit, but it's a fair estimation.

[ET80]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/texans/2021/12/09/zach-cunningham-waived-texans-year-after-signing-58-m-extension/6445278001/

[Marco79]

6 hours ago, Pastor Dillon said:

My guess is that we knew those guys needed to go, and we were really tight on money in 2021 so we deferred some hits to 2022 when we have actual draft picks and some more money.

The issue isn’t that he got rid of those guys, the issue is how/when he got rid of them.

The Texans didn’t need to clear cap space to do what they were going to do this year (be terrible), so restructuring these deals was just a short sighted thing to do that will just hurt them down the line.
 

I think this critique/blame is more than fair to put on Caserio too. Yes, he came into a bad situation, but his decisions made it worse off. If he had just cut these players it wouldn’t be controversial, it made sense to move on from each of these players. It’s just that he took a bad situation and made it worse by doing these restructures.
 

Also, I’m willing to give Caserio a shot and I’ve actually liked a good amount moves he’s made (Collins, King, trading for Miller at the time) and his overall philosophy from this past offseason, but at the same time he has also done a lot of questionable things that makes me think what he has hit on can be attributed more so to luck and the sheer volume of moves he’s had to make than his actual acumen.