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John McClain and others are reporting the Houston Texans will receive three compensatory draft picks for the 2018 NFL Draft. Specifically, the Texans will receive a third-round draft pick and two sixth-rounders, bringing their total amount of picks to eight in the upcoming draft.
Texans get the third round compensatory pick for losing CB AJ Bouye and two sixth round picks for losing OLB John Simon and S Quintin Demps in free agency.
— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) February 23, 2018
Losing A.J. Bouye by not matching Jacksonville’s offer or franchise-tagging him was a total disaster, and this is little consolation. However, with no first or second round picks thanks to the trade of Brock Osweiler and the trade up for Deshaun Watson, this will help new General Manager Brian Gaine replenish the many holes the team has going into the April 26th draft emanating from Arlington, TX.
Here is what the Texans have to work with, barring any changes prior to the draft:
3rd Round (68th)
3rd Round (80th via Seattle)
3rd Round (98th, compensatory)
4th Round (103rd)
6th Round (177th)
6th Round (211th, compensatory)
6th Round (214th, compensatory)
7th Round (222nd)
Clearly you can find solid starters and impact players in the mid-rounds. That will be Gaine’s challenge. We’ll see if he can do better than Rick Smith did with that portion of the draft.
Also of note - remember as of the 2016 NFL Draft, league rules allow compensatory picks to be traded. There’s a possibility the Texans may package some picks to get “the guy they want” at some point.
We have two months of this ahead of us, but feel free to plug in some mid-round Texans hopefuls in the comments section below!