There are 14 players on the Texans' current roster that are going to be unrestricted free agents on March 5th if a deal is not reached before then. These players are Chester Pitts, Kevin Walter, Ephraim Salaam, Rex Grossman, Chris Brown (Hallelujah!), Tutan Reyes, Jeff Zgonina, Chaun Thompson, Khary Campbell, Nick Ferguson, Brian Russell, Dunta Robinson, Matt Turk and Bryan Pittman.
As for restricted free agents, if no collective bargaining agreement is reached, DeMeco Ryans, Tim Bulman, Bernard Pollard, John Busing, Ryan Moats, Rashad Butler, Chris White and Owen Daniels will all be free agents on March 5th as well.
The Texans can retain first right of refusal and compensation rights for their restricted free agents by submitting a minimum qualifying tender to those players by February 26.
In my opinion, DeMeco Ryans needs the most attention on getting a deal done. I'm sure the majority of the readers and writers here would agree. MDC wrote a good post about the Owen Daniels situation and if he should be franchise tagged or not. You know, because Dunta Robinson would be okay with being tagged again this season, by the way. But what about guys like Chester Pitts, Kevin Walter and Bernard Pollard? None of them should be able to command too much money on the market. Not with Pitts coming off of an injury and Walter's production dropping off significantly this season as compared to 2008. Someone might pay Pollard, but I believe the team wants him back and will get something worked out. But DeMeco Ryans needs to be priority number one. Because he is the one player I truly believe might leave and cause us to regret it for the rest of his career.
I'm not the "capologist" guy like MDC is, so he can probably crunch the numbers a little better. But of these players listed above, which do you want to keep most and why?
Discuss.