Houston Texans: Gareon Conley trade shows misguided view
The Houston Texans hit the trade market again, landing cornerback Gareon Conley on Monday but also highlighting a misguided vision for this team.
Few teams in the NFL have been more active in terms of making trades than the Houston Texans thus far in 2019. Between trading away Jadeveon Clowney, trading for Laremy Tunsil and Kenny Stills, and trading for running back Duke Johnson as well. They added to that further on Monday by making a deal for cornerback Gareon Conley with the Oakland Raiders.
As first reported by Vic Tafur of The Athletic, Conley heads to the Texans in exchange for a third-round pick. Interestingly enough, the 2020 third-rounder that’s part of the deal is the one they acquired from the Seahawks in the Clowney trade earlier this year.
In terms of simply getting on-field impact, Conley could answer some problems for Houston’s defense. The Texans secondary has been lacking this season and, though Conley has been up and down and Oakland, he is a former first-round pick with plenty of talent. Thus, he’s a player that could indeed help them. Furthermore, getting a former first-rounder for a third-round pick is not bad value.
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Where the trade becomes problematic for the Texans, though, is with their current team-building strategy that they’re implementing. Maybe that has something to do with head coach Bill O’Brien acting as general manager but, whatever the reason why, it’s troublesome.
After the Conley trade, the Texans now have two picks total in the first three rounds of the next two drafts — a 2020 second-round pick and 2021 third-round pick. For a team that has a young quarterback like Deshaun Watson, that’s unbelievably limited draft capital to build around him with over the next couple of years.
That type of transactional behavior makes sense for an organization that’s primed to go after a Super Bowl in the immediate future. It’s the type of strategy we saw deployed by the Los Angeles Rams leading up to their run to the Big Game last year. Where that becomes an issue, though, is that the Texans don’t look like a team that’s a Gareon Conley away from making the Super Bowl.
Though improved, the Houston offensive line remains lackluster at protecting Watson. Meanwhile, the defense has vastly underperformed this year to the point where it’s obvious that a high-upside, low-floor cornerback isn’t going to change everything.
Because they have Watson, DeAndre Hopkins and some solid pieces on both sides of the ball, they can compete with anyone. However, they are not in an elite tier with the likes of the New England Patriots or fully-healthy Kansas City Chiefs. That makes how the team has operated under O’Brien all the more worrisome.
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By way of all of the trades they’ve made this season, the Texans have gone in on team-building through trades rather than with their future through the draft. And frankly, they are not a team close enough to winning a Super Bowl to be operating that way. Gareon Conley is going to improve this football team but that doesn’t make the logic behind the deal any less misguided.