With the NFL’s trade deadline coming soon next Tuesday, some teams have already clarified their position this year as buyers and sellers. The Houston Texans are definitely part of the latter group.
The Texans are coming off of a four-win season and they’re going to have to move mountains in 2021 to be able to even match that pitiful total. The Texans are currently 1-5 in the AFC South, and they’re very likely headed toward the worst record in the AFC, if not the NFL, depending on what happens with the Detroit Lions and maybe their own division rivals, the Jacksonville Jaguars. Either way, Houston has every reason to trade away veteran talent in order to acquire more draft picks.
The truth is that Houston has been selling off talent for quite some time. The DeAndre Hopkins’ deal is the best example, but Houston has been making weird roster decisions for quite some time. They’ve even released the likes of Whitney Mercilus when the trade market didn’t materialize for him as they continue to leak veteran talent. It only makes sense, then, for the team to try to recoup some sort of value on a player like wide receiver Brandin Cooks.
On Wednesday, NFL analyst Field Yates posted about the potential return on a trade for Cooks.
*IF* the Texans were to make Brandin Cooks available in a trade, he’d be a valuable/realistic target for several teams because of his salary. He’s due ~$1.5M for the rest of this year.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) October 27, 2021
Hard to find affordable trade targets that would bring as much of an impact as Cooks could.
That’s not to say that Cooks is officially available, but his name has certainly been floated in columns about potential trade candidates before, and at this point, he’s starring for a basement-dwelling team going nowhere fast. If a number of teams would be interested, could we put the Kansas City Chiefs on that list? That’s the real question.