Houston Texans Management Finally Addresses The DeAndre Hopkins Trade...Sort Of

General Manager Bill O’Brien, chakra chart decipherer Jack Easterby, and Texans owner Cal McNair said nothing after the Texans traded DeAndre Hopkins for David Johnson, the 40th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, and a fourth round pick swap. They didn’t address the media. They didn’t discuss the trade in any official capacity whatsoever. Silence. They had better things to do. More important work to complete. They needed to go out there and sign Randall Cobb and Eric Murray.

Last Friday afternoon, they finally opened up with a conference call in an effort to cajole that most pure and vital spirit—season ticket sales. You can listen to it in its entirety here.

If you don’t have the 20 minutes to listen to it all, here are the highlights.

“I think we’ve done a great job with that of keeping guys on board. There are certain guys that we just we just couldn’t do it financially and we would have loved to keep on board. D.J. Reader - We would have loved to keep D.J. Reader. We had good conversations with him and his representatives, but at the end of the day, we couldn’t get that one done. So that’s going to happen every single year.”

“I would say the deal with Arizona was a deal that we felt was in the best interest of our team. DeAndre Hopkins was a great football player here. He made so many plays for us. We love DeAndre Hopkins, but he had three years left on a deal and he wanted a raise and we weren’t going to be able to go in that direction.”

“We felt like we had a great offer from Arizona that involved picks, that involved an excellent three-down running back who is hungry and humble and just can’t wait to get started. David Johnson is going to be a great addition to our football team. There’s a lot of things that go into trades, a lot of thoughts to go in.

We’re not trying to win March. We’re trying to win in January and we feel like these moves put us in a position where we’re incomplete right now. We’re not where we want to be, but it’s April, it’s not November. We’re trying to set our team up depth-wise, talent-wise. Everything that we do to be able to win in January.”

The Texans are smart, tough, and dependable. They are a T-E-A-M. They are going to win in January because they didn’t spend in March. You should be really excited to watch this team in 2020. They are just getting started. They did not get worse this offseason. They got more work to do.

You heard it yourselves. I hope this quelled all your fears and put out your fiery anger.