2018 Houston Texans Free Agency: Summary And Salary Cap Update

The Texans arrived in free agency with numerous opportunities to improve the roster, decisions to make, and weaknesses to strengthen. This, plus the $63 million in cap space, ensured last week was going to be a tumultuous maelstrom of page refreshing, scrolling for more, and heartstring yanking.

What was expected became reality. Last week the Texans made thirteen moves in addition to smaller ones they made before league-permitted tampering began. Despite being alive and plugged in throughout all of this, the aggregate of what all these moves globbed into was easy to lose sight of. When you are yanked under the ocean, you don’t think about the shore.

So, here is what Houston did this past week:

Re-Signed:

Johnathan Joseph, CB: 2 years, $10 million (2018 cap hit: $4 million)

Shane Lechler, P: 1 year, $2 million

Corey Moore, S: 1 year, $630k

Bruce Ellington, WR: 1 year, $1.25 million

Brian Peters, LB: Terms not known.

Angelo Blackson, DE: 1 year, $1.35 million

Ufomba Kamalu, DE: 1 year, $630k

Signed:

Tyrann Mathieu, S: 1 year, $7 million

Johnson Bademosi, CB: 2 years, $6.25 million (2018 cap hit not known)

Senio Kelemete, OG: 3 years, $12 million (2018 cap hit: $4 million)

Zach Fulton, OG: Terms not known (Expected Average Yearly Salary: $7 million)

Seantrel Henderson, OT: 1 year, $1.7 million

Aaron Colvin, CB: 4 years, $34 million (2018 cap hit: $7.75 million)

Claimed Off Waivers:

Sammie Coates, WR: 1 year $730k

Retired:

C.J. Fiedorowicz, TE: Cap Hit of $1.6 million

As of right now, after all of these moves, the Texans have $40,334,724 in cap space remaining according to Spotrac. This does not include Zach Fulton’s contract because it’s some super-secret thing. It was reported that Fulton signed a deal with the Texans that averaged around $7 million per year. The best estimate is that Houston has approximately $33 million in cap space remaining.

With this $33 million left to spend, the Texans will go into the second stage of free agency. The bargain shopping begins now that the majority of the top free agents have picked their new football-playing destinations. And like last week, in the weeks to come, Houston should make a high volume of moves. They still have needs at tight end, right tackle, defensive end, outside linebacker, quarterback, and they could use some talent upgrades here and there.

Here is a list of the still available free agents.

Make sure to follow along here at Battle Red Blog as the Texans continue their journey through free agency and into the 2018 NFL Draft.