The massive land rush that is NFL free agency begins on Monday at 11 a.m. Houston time, when teams can begin talking to free agents from NFL franchises other than their own. We will see some insane early deals, literally within an hour of free agency beginning, and then over the next 48 hours, we will see some more deals that are lightly less insane.
If you recall, a year ago, the Houston Texans were very active in that "slightly less insane" phase of free agency, signing the likes of linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair, defensive end Denico Autry, and defensive end Danielle Hunter. They also traded for and extended the contract of running back Joe Mixon.
The Texans were active, because they had a ton of space under the NFL's salary cap. This year, that's not the case. When we all woke up on Wednesday morning, the Texans had roughly $5 million in cap space with which to shop, starting Monday. That's not nearly enough to compete with teams for viable free agents.
The Texans need to make moves to open up cap space, and that process began on Wednesday morning, as the team restructured the contract of wide receiver Nico Collins, opening up $9.8 million in cap space to use over the next several days. The restructure process is a simple one. It's not a pay cut in any way for Collins, but instead, the team is taking a large chunk of his 2025 salary and turning it into a one-time signing bonus. This allows the Texans to take what was a dollar amount that would ALL hit the 2025 salary cap, and spread it out over the remainder of Collins' multi-year deal.
This is the first of what should be several more moves over the next few days to get the Texans into a competitive salary cap figure to go after improvements on the offensive line, defensive line, and wide receiver rooms. Other candidates for contract restructures, like the one Collins agreed to, include tackle Laremy Tunsil, Hunter, Al-Shaair, and possibly tackle/guard Tytus Howard. Really, anyone with a large 2025 salary figure is a restructure candidate.
This coming week is a huge one for the Texans in building on their second straight divisional crown in 2024. GM Nick Caserio will make sure they have the money to go to war with other teams in acquiring talent via free agency.
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