Now this became quite an interesting discussion & got me thinking about it. I'm sure this isn't something many of us have considered, so let's break it down.

Daniels is scheduled to make $4M in base salary plus $1.75M in bonuses. In total, he'll count as a $5.75M cap hit next season & will be a $6.25M cap hit the year after that. He is 30 years old, & will be 31 in November. He's a pretty good player, but he's starting to get pretty expensive. That being said, he's usually one of the more reliable targets for Schaub & has been a vital cog for the offense for a number of years.

Now you have two young guys behind him in Garrett Graham & James Casey, both of whom have shown they are capable of doing the job. Currently we have Casey playing FB just so he can get on the field, but TE is his more natural position. If the Texans were to resign Casey, it would come at a considerably cheaper price tag than what Daniels is getting paid (hopefully about $2M-3M a year at most), plus with the savings of cutting Daniels, the Texans could go get another FB like, I don't know, maybe a soon to be cap casualty like Vonta Leach.

Now if you bring up the Eric Winston situation, remember that this would be a slightly different case. Newton was pretty much unknown & Butler had limited playing time. We really didn't know what there was depth wise behind Winston. The Texans know what they have in Casey & Graham, two known commodities waiting for their chance to step up, not to mention they can always draft another TE in the mid rounds, which combined with Casey & Graham should still be cheaper overall than Daniels himself.

Lastly, remember that the Texans are pretty close to the cap & may require a drastic move or two to resign guys like Quin, Barwin, & Casey. Immediately cutting Kevin Walter is the first move, followed next by giving Antonio Smith an extension & shrinking his cap hit. Cutting Owen Daniels could end up being an unexpected move similar to Winston getting cut & Demeco getting traded last season. I'm throwing this out there just to see how many of you think about this