t96

Both sides want it to be over ASAP, it hurts Watson a lot too to sit another year so if the Texans threaten that Watson will have to give at least a little bit. Both sides will likely have to give a little bit.

Gonna be a tough sell for the Texans to trade him in the AFC though

@Verge has plenty of credibility. She has been spot on with the draft for years and has been increasingly correct about non-draft stuff too. One of the best posters here. Not sure why you care about the pro-nouns, they have nothing to do with the information she provides

Yeah I know so. Does that mean he’s worth this return with still some potential that he could be suspended or have more legal issues in the future? No probably not. But he is absolutely an elite franchise QB up there with Mahomes, Allen, etc.

Lol dude get outta here with that, Watson is on another friggin planet than Cousins

I get why some may hate the idea of what we'd be giving up but at the end of the day we haven't really had a single thing to be excited about with this team in years. I want it to happen just so I can look forward to Sundays during the NFL season again.

If we sign Armstead, the Aints would be wise to sign Greg Hardy now that he's out of the UFC. Dude literally racked up like 5 sacks in 2013 against Armstead...

Eric Fisher was pretty good at one point but that reeks of Matt Kalil 2.0 for us. Please no unless it's a 1 year cheap deal or something.

I think it's the opposite. We have plenty of cap space and plenty of ability to clear up cap space (Watson restructure/extension easily brings his number down this year, shipping out Darnold, etc.). I would think it's encouraging to Watson to see us spending in areas to improve the team, especially on OL. A top guard and top LT in free agency would definitely help convince me if I were Watson.

Corbett signing makes it more likely we get Watson if you ask me. I’m sure he’ll like the investments in OL

Really solid signing I like him a lot.

The biggest and most important question in this whole situation by far: @Zod will the Huddle hold up once the decision is made, whether it's us or the Aints?

Yep 100% and he also saved all those people in Nakatomi Plaza

McClain, @Verge, plenty in Panthers media and others have all said Watson waiving for the Panthers is no issue. It'll all come down to compensation for the Texans, which we seem to be leading in at this point...

yeah he's clearly getting fed from someone in the Aints org who is very confident in their ability to get Watson, which ultimately likely means nothing. his like 10 straight tweets about how great the Aints are for this deal made it obvious

I think the asterisks make it pretty clear that it could absolutely change depending on the outcomes of meeting(s) today...

oh poo it's all going down tonight huh

Loading up on comp picks this FA cycle makes a lot of sense as we are losing plenty of FAs who can get us high comp picks

The Texans, Watson and the NFL all had an understanding that he wouldn't be playing this past season while the allegations and especially potential criminal charges were hanging over all their heads. A big part of that has now been resolved. Watson may have played for the Texans last year since no team was trading for him with everything hanging over him. If he tried to play or the Texans tried to play him the league certainly would've stepped him and put him on the exempt list. They didn't need to since both the team and player kept him out of the spotlight anyways.

Pretty sure if he refuses to play they can suspend him for conduct detrimental and he won't count towards their cap.

Yes they can, if the Texans have a team or teams offering more than others they can say waive for that/those team(s) or play for us or don't report and don't get paid at all. No the Texans don't want to do that they want to get the return for him ASAP but if it's that much of a difference they can absolutely just sit on his rights, and he will most likely give in before they would.

There is a limit on how far out you can trade picks I believe, for what it's worth. I don't think we can trade picks from the 2025 draft or later right now. So we have 3 firsts and 2 seconds potentially on the table. That alone won't get it done most likely, especially if they're taking Darnold's contract off our hands.

You mentioned dead cap which only applies to us and which makes it make more sense for the Texans. The contract would be much better for them than it is for us since we've already paid him his signing bonus. He's still an elite offensive player, easily a top 3 skill player in the league. Darnold is a throw in to make the salary cap work. They aren't contending this year and it's just 1 season then they move on from Darnold, with Watson's cap hit gone that's easy for them to take on for 1 season. Part of why we have one of the best deals is we have the 6th overall pick. Other teams' picks this year who are actually in the mix are much lower.

We may have soured on Brown as a fanbase but I still think he has a bunch of value in this trade. 3 firsts, Darnold, Brown and McCaffrey; or swap out McCaffrey for a couple 2nds

It makes sense if we don't want to give up any of our top defensive players. Plus it's already been reported we've been taking calls on him outside of the Watson trade so that's not really a shock to me, although the Texans haven't shown any reported interest in him