Reality check. Nobody other then the Jets would consider starting Darnold next season. At this point Darnold is a project/backup QB, the same as Tannahill was when he left Miami. The Texans aren't going to say. "Okay give us Sam Darnold and we'll roll with him". Come back to reality. To those suggesting adding Watson would make us a top 2 team in the division - here I go again. Many in this fanbase don't understand how far we are behind Buffalo and Miami. Miami was 10-6 because they have been rebuilding for 2 seasons. They are 2-3 players away from dominance. Miami still has 4 top 50 picks this draft - so expect them to be fielding a complete, dominant team, next season. That is from 3 years of aquiring draft capital and rebuilding. We were 2-14 this season. We have 3 top 50 picks - one less then Miami. You need to realize how far we are behind them. Their roster is already 3X better then ours and still holds more high draft capital. Even if Tua busts we are light years more then a star QB behind them. Buffalo has just finished their 3 season rebuild - aided greatly by trading a future star draft pick - Mahomes. They are 13 and 3! If you think just trading Adams gave us the capital to properly rebuild you are way off. We would need at least, at minimum, 2 Adams trades to catch up to the top of our division. Yes we have a lot of picks in rounds 4-7. Do you really want to put our rebuild hopes on the bottom of the draft? This is why the #2 pick gaining value has been a god send. It gives us the draft capital to start catching up to Buffalo and Miami. But its not going to be next season so QB is not really the main concern at the moment. If we blow our one high trade asset on a QB we will have failed rebuilding 101. Pretty sure JD knows this. Come back to reality. There is no doubt in my mind we are trading the #2 pick for more top 50 picks.
It will definitely be interesting to see what happens. Trading that many picks would hurt. There's no doubt about it. Still, Watson's level of play would cover a multitude of sins. It would depend upon what Miami's cap looks like, when some of their better players are due for new contracts, etc. Yes, they need improvement, but I wouldn't say that they need a huge improvement. They were almost a playoff team anyway. Watson makes them a sure-fire playoff team unless they would lose some key players in FA or have to cut some to fit Watson under the cap.
It's not a fairytale thread when the player is reportedly extremely unhappy and wants out. Not that I think that can't be rectified or he will be moved but this isn't just a fan with a fantastical idea. This has been reported by all the major players. RE: the cap - there's always a way to circumvent it. NFL teams usually don't pay that money away like MLB teams do, but there are bonus conversions and what not to make it a lesser hit. How that works I do not really know.
I don’t think the Texans can make the trade with Miami on principal — give up your elite QB just to get your own draft pick back? That’s Mike Maccagnan level failure right there. Of course it’s a fairyland discussion at this point — it’s a discussion about possibilities not an assertion of realities. Nobody here is confused by that.
Watson is the real deal and I'd have no problem trading a couple first rounders for him. More than that and I'm not sure - I don't like the idea of trading away too much draft capital when we have almost no talent anywhere and I also don't think the Texans would do it for anything less than a major haul. The Texans have apparently indicated that it would take 3 first rounders to start the conversation. It gets a little dicey for me there.
I'd be surprised if he'd be dealt to an AFC team. There are enough NFC teams that are in desperate need of a QB that they should be able to find a trade partner in the NFC and avoid having to compete with Watson for a playoff spot each year. I would think teams like San Francisco, Atlanta, and Washington, among others, would be more likely destinations than the Jets.
I totally disagree that it's a failure, much less a Mike McCagnan-level fail. It's correcting a mistake. If Watson truly is unhappy and no longer wants to be there, they can't keep him. You can't have your QB and team leader being unhappy and not wanting to be there. It's their own fault. All they had to do was give Bieniemy a token interview and listen to Watson's opinion on the GM. It was total arrogance on the part of McNair. O'Brien screwed the team and that idiot McNair allowed him to. The Texans desperately need draft picks. They basically have two marketable players, Watson and JJ Watt. With Watt's age and injury history, they may not get that much for him. They probably need a rebuild like the Jets, and if so, need to re-set the QB cap. With all the picks (and high picks) they could get from the Dolphins this year, that would go a long ways towards starting the rebuild. They'd be making the best of a bad situation. I doubt that they trade him, because their fanbase would kill them, but that team is basically screwed for the foreseeable future.
No doubt, what they could get, in addition to the 3rd pick, would make the trade a good trade (as good a trade can be having to trade a QB like Watson), but from a superficial narrative standpoint, having to trade your best player, and one of the best players in the NFL, to get your own pick back is at the top of all-time ineptitude.
Miami will not be dominant unless Tua provides great QB play. Remember when Fitzmagic led the Jets to 10 wins. He is having this type of season, Miami has a good coach, and they won exactly same number of games as we did in Fitzmagic year with the same result of missing play-offs in spite of extra team added this year. That's why I am worried about Watson being traded there. Right now Miami is not a play-off team. Buffalo is #2 in AFC, won division. Buffalo is the model here. By giving these examples you essentially proved the opposite of what you were contending. Guess what, they drafted a great QB with top pick on the year they sucked, got a good coach, and built from there, improving each year. This is our ticket as well. Get a QB with top pick, get a good coach (perhaps Daboll right from Buffalo), and keep building from there. I think it is possible to get around 10 win team like Miami, but if you want Buffalo level of success, it is important to hit a good QB with top pick, and you can't do that if you trade that pick away for "value". Especially when there is a pretty special prospect to be had with #2
His value is going to be high, of course. He's a young, all-pro level QB. However, their bargaining power isn't exactly high at the moment, especially for teams that are already in position to draft a potential franchise QB. It is a bad team with no draft capital and little cap room. Their talent is 3 players deep in Watson, Watt, and Tunsil (maybe Fuller?) and at least 2 of those guys aren't happy with the team. They can't turn that team around with that little in the way of assets. If they dig their heels in the ground on an offer like the one suggested, it's going to be a non-starter for most teams. The Dolphins or Jets might actually be their best options cause Tua/Darnold are at least options with potential.
Of course it's all-time ineptitude on the part of O'Brien and McNair, but most of the blame goes on McNair. He makes the Johnsons look like Einsteins in comparison. Making O'Brien the GM was bad enough, but then allowing him to make the horrendous trades he did was just nuts. They're pretty much damned if they do and damned if they don't. Caserio has his work cut out for him, much, MUCH moreso than JD.
It comes down to supply and demand. Theres one QB in this draft that's truly coveted. Outside of Lawrence theres not 1 prospect any GM would take over Watson. Dont fool yourself. If Watson becomes available, and that's a big if, the demand will be incredibly high and the draft capital unprecedented.
I would do a trade for him in a heartbeat - think about it over the past 10 years or so we have spent two top 5 first round picks and effectively 6 second round picks on high draft QBs (Sanchez 1st & 2nd rounders (plus some players), Geno 2nd, Hackenburg 2nd, Darnold 1st and three 2nd round picks) without having anything under centre we can rely on - so that is 8 picks in the top 2 rounds we have spent on quarterbacks with more or less nothing to show for it and people are quibbling over a pick here or there - and cap space is there to be spent
People are so concerned about building championship calibre teams and comparing SB teams and what not. I understand that - it's the ultimate goal. But we also need to get back to respectability. There's this misnomer that you must have every single draft pick for the next ten years to build a good team. It's true that the more draft picks you have, the more likely you are to fix your team since some will inevitably fail. But God damn. I'd take 8-8 to 11-5 over the next decade with a shooters shot in hell at winning the SB with Watson if we had to concede four of those draft picks. Not to mention every year that a good QB catches a weaker schedule they're going to fight around .500. The Texans schedule was absolutely brutal this year. They played six playoff teams in their first eight weeks.
My fear is that this is where Woody raises his ugly head. By that, I mean that he interjects himself and forces Douglas to overpay for Watson because Woody wants Watson as a trophy to show that Woody is a real big shot. . Reasonable minds can differ on whether it's a good idea to pay the price Houston will demand to trade Watson. As long as the decision is made by Douglas for sound football reasons, that's fine. I just don't want to see him forced to do it by management just to stroke the owner's ego. Any chance that Biden will appoint Woody as ambassador to Mars?
The Bills rebuild began in 2017, the year before they drafted Allen, when they traded the Patrick Mahomes pick to KC. They turned that trade into 2 probowlers, 2 WRs, and a pick that they used to trade up to grab Allen the following draft. In 2017 they also cleaned house and traded Sammy Watkins for a 2nd, Ronald Darby for a 3rd, Reggie Ragland for a 4th, Marcel Dareus for a 6th, and Kevon Symore for Kaelin Clay and a 7th. But if you want to believe started building when they drafted Allen, go ahead.
If this happens we might as well all pick a new team until the Johnson's die or sell the Jets. I think when they got Allen is less important than the fact that they got a QB at all. Their rebuild wouldn't be a rebuild without Allen. They'd be a middling team that went 7-9 this year. I really don't think the order you get the QB/surrounding talent is important, just that you get a QB. With that in mind, the Jets clearly need a QB. They have a chance this year to pick a guy (Fields) who would normally be the #1 QB chosen. Sure, they could trade the pick and hope for the best next year, but it's unlikely they'd be in as good a spot to get a top prospect as they are this year.
