LA Chargers’ potential trade partners for Mike Williams: 3. Houston Texans
The Houston Texans have a problem. Star quarterback Deshaun Watson has demanded a trade out of Houston as he was not included in the general manager and head coach search, something that ownership promised he would be a part of.
Watson really does not have that much leverage, though. He just signed a four-year, $156 million contract and if the Texans really wanted to be petty about the situation they could add another 1-3 years on top of that with franchise tags.
Simply put: this is not the NBA where a player forces a trade with one more season left on his deal and the team simply wants to get something in return. Watson is locked down for quite some time and the Texans don’t have to move him.
In fact, Houston is reportedly insisting to other teams that they will not trade Watson this offseason.
Instead, they could look to repair the relationship by bringing in someone who Watson is familiar with: Mike Williams. Williams and Watson were arguably the best QB/WR combo in college football at Clemson and would be reunited in Houston.
There are two routes the Texans could take. They could trade late draft-capital for Williams like the Jaguars did, but that would take the team cutting some players to be able to afford Williams this season.
Or, they could do something that I pitched in a previous article and trade J.J. Watt for Williams. Now, this does not accomplish the feat of saving money for the Chargers, but it does replace Melvin Ingram on the defense and allows the team to spend an early draft pick on a receiver, not an edge rusher.
It is really tit for tat if we are being honest, but with a defensive-minded head coach, I would not be totally surprised if a trade like that came to be.