Texans Blasted for Having NFL’s Worst Offseason

Amid a new batch of offseason evaluations from ESPN's Bill Barnwell, he stacked up tiers of which teams around the NFL have proven to have put together the best and worst offseason of moves through seven weeks of action.

For the Texans, the outlook wasn't so bright: they found themselves dead last for the worst offseason in the league.

"I'm not sure I've seen a team give up on so many meaningful additions so early in the season since the Al Davis days in Oakland. Texans general manager Nick Caserio gave Niemann $4 million guaranteed and then cut the special teamer in August. He traded for Gardner-Johnson, restructured his deal in September and then cut him after three games, leaving Houston on the hook for $8.3 million. Robinson was benched after one game and spent two games on special teams before being traded to the Browns, with the Texans paying $9.2 million for his brief stint."

"In all, that's $21.5 million for players who were already off the roster by the end of September. You can applaud Caserio for recognizing that players weren't going to work out and treating the money the Texans spent over the summer as sunk costs, but that's a lot of cash committed to guys who simply weren't good enough to stay in the starting lineup for very long."

Overall, Barnwell sums up this Texans offseason to support C.J. Stroud as a process that "hasn't worked," and points to Houston's porous offensive line as a key reason for those lapses.

"The offseason project of rebuilding the infrastructure around C.J. Stroud hasn’t worked... The various young players and veterans the Texans added haven't made much of a difference, with Stroud running for his life against quality pass rushes on a weekly basis. Aireontae Ersery might end up sticking somewhere along the offensive line, and Ingram has played the best football of his career after being acquired for a sixth-round pick, but Caserio will be looking for more help up front next offseason."

Was the Texans' Offseason the Biggest Failure in the NFL?

It's been a rough go for C.J. Stroud and Co. through six games. The quarterback has had two solid performances vs. the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens where the offensive line was steady, the pass and run game was balanced, and playcalling went their way that came together for their two wins on the year.

However, the consistency outside of those two showings for the offense has been lacking. As a result, Stroud has struggled. And now at nearly the midway point of the season, the shots are being fired at Nick Caserio and this front office for coming up short in their mission to improve this offseason, and how they've tried to correct course.

It took less than half of the season for this team to give up on the experiments for C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Cam Robinson, which haven't quite panned out in otherworldly results after the fact. The offensive line shifts haven't gone according to plan, with Stroud facing considerable pressure. The defense is holding up its weight, but the offense hasn't had the guns to do so.

If the Texans want to save face for their aspirations to be competitive down the second half of the season, they'll be forced to bank on their internal talent to shape up, or go out and be aggressive on the market for the trade deadline— which is far from the best situation for this front office to be in.

Once the end of the season rolls around, there will be a better sense of how the Texans' offseason panned out, for better or for worse, in its entirety. So far though, it's not looking especially promising.