The much rumored, prematurely confirmed Keenan-McCardell-To-Houston story has finally come true, just in time for McCardell to attend the first practice of training camp. Although I believe K-Mac's "I had offers from lots of teams and left money on the table to sign with the hometown team" spiel about as much as I believe that the Falcons are comfortable with Joey Harrington under center, I love this signing.
McCardell should immediately come in and compete for the No. 2 WR job, which we have documented ad nauseam as a bit of a concern. And by "bit of a concern," I mean "shooting up the chart of Tim's mortal fears at a dizzying pace." Seriously, the fate of the Texans' No. 2 WR position scares me more than Super AIDS.
Worst case scenario, McCardell has lost his fastball and doesn't make the squad out of camp. If that happens, the Texans rolled the dice and lost very little, likely only $40,000.00 in signing bonus money; this is assuming, of course, that no other portion of McCardell's contract is guaranteed, which could be totally wrong. And even if we assume the Texans are on the hook for McCardell's entire 2007 salary (which is rather unlikely in the world of non-guaranteed salaries that is the NFL), that $820,000.00 sure is a helluva lot less than what the organization is paying Eric Moulds to play for the Titans this year.
Bravo, Smithiak. I can assure you that we'll be toasting your genius even more than originally planned tomorrow night.