Red Zone Play: You Like That?

The current buzz surrounding the Texans’ quarterback conundrum is for them to either stand pat with who they have, trade for Jimmy Garoppolo,or hope a solid prospect falls to them at the 25th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft.

Another option I touched on recently that’s nothing more than pure speculation at this point seems to make a lot more sense: pull off a crazy trade for another quarterback.

With the Redskins‘ inability to get a deal done with their incumbent QB, Kirk Cousins, other teams must be smelling blood in the water. If Rick Smith isn’t on the phone to Washington general manager Scott McCloughan about the possibility of Cousins coming to Houston, something is wrong.

Recent reports have Cousins saying he’ll sign with the San Francisco 49ers if given the choice, but wouldn’t coming to a team like the Texans – a team arguably one solid QB away from the Super Bowl, make far more sense than going to a team in such disarray that the playoffs may not be possible in the next several seasons?

Here’s a list of all the impending free agent quarterbacks:

Matt Schaub, Atlanta Falcons

Ryan Mallett, Baltimore Ravens

EJ Manuel, Buffalo Bills

Brian Hoyer, Chicago Bears

Matt Barkley, Chicago Bears

Josh McCown, Cleveland Browns

Mark Sanchez, Dallas Cowboys

Kellen Moore, Dallas Cowboys

Dan Orlovsky, Detroit Lions

Case Keenum, Los Angeles Rams

T.J. Yates, Miami Dolphins

Shaun Hill, Minnesota Vikings

Josh Johnson, New York Giants

Ryan Nassib, New York Giants

Ryan Fitzpatrick, New York Jets

Geno Smith, New York Jets

Matt McGloin, Oakland Raiders

Landry Jones, Pittsburgh Steelers

Kellen Clemens, Los Angeles Chargers

Blaine Gabbert, San Francisco 49ers

Christian Ponder, San Francisco 49ers

Thad Lewis, San Francisco 49ers

Mike Glennon, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Matt Cassel, Tennessee Titans

Kirk Cousins, Washington Redskins

Several of those names are awfully familiar to Houston fans. Instead of waiting for one of them to hit the open market, trading for Cousins as soon as the league year begins on March 9th makes far more sense.

Pastor Kerry Shook of The Woodlands Church just outside of Houston interviewed Cousins recently, illustrating what a high character sort of guy Cousins is, the same sort of guy the Houston Texans organization craves.

Over his career, Cousins has a completion percentage of 65.9%, passed for 12,113 yards and nailed 72 touchdowns while running for nine more. Those sort of stats, complementing Houston’s “lights out” defens,e would do wonders for this team.

If Washington fails to plant the Exclusive Rights Franchise Tag on Cousins, any team can swoop in and sign him while giving up two first round draft picks. Let’s face it: if Cousins is actually the missing piece of the puzzle, that’s a small price to pay for one - or multiple - trips to the Super Bowl.

In a perfect “Emperor of the Universe” world, I’d trade Brock Osweiler and Johnathan Joseph to the Redskins for Cousins. Jay Gruden is considered a QB guy in a similar vein to his more famous brother, Jon. When watching Jon’s QB Camp video on Osweiler, you can see the elder Gruden believes in Brock. Washington owner Dan Snyder has never been one to shy away from a challenge, or to throw money at a player when it doesn’t make any sense to do so. Plus he’d get help for Washington’s secondary, which certainly needs it.

Now, I have no illusions that this will actually happen, so the more likely option in a hypothetical trade would be Joseph and some variation of draft picks. Either way, it makes far more sense to bring in Cousins if the price isn’t too steep than to take yet another Brady backup (see the list above), hope for dumb luck to strike, allowing one of the decent QBs in the draft to fall to #25 and then praying he actually turns into an NFL quality signal-caller, or worse >gasp< take on Tony Romo in his quick pit stop between the Houston Methodist Training Center and the Houston Methodist spine surgery center.

Once he acquired Cousins, Rick Smith could work a more cap-friendly deal for his new QB and new life of Houston’s offense could begin.

Trading Joseph also has the side effect of allowing us to retain A.J. Bouye and pair him with Kevin Johnson while sliding Kareem Jackson into a nickel/safety role. Then the Texans could grab one of the top safeties in the draft with a first or second round pick to help Andre Hal hold down the last line of defense.

What do you think? Do you like that? Do you think I’m completely off my rocker? Think there’s no way this could happen? Have a better trade idea to bring Cousins in? Let us know in the comments below.