2021 NFL Draft: The Texans Should Listen To Matt Schaub

There are three types of Texans fans.

1. Sad, demented souls who are old enough to be Oilers and Texans fans.
2. The next batch who only know the Texans and have known them since their inception, or sometime near there.
3. The rest are those vagabonds who showed up after Deshaun Watson was drafted.

The first two sections of the fanbase spent seven years of their life watching Matt Schaub play football while his defense let him down, or his kicker missed kicks, or his red zone back fumbled into the end zone. Schaub turned the outside zone into bootleg, hurled pass after pass to Andre Johnson, and it all fell apart in 2013.

Late last week, Schaub was on Sports Radio 610 and talked about retirement, his time in Houston, the fact that YES, the Texans would have won a Super Bowl in 2011 if Albert Haynesworth hadn’t gnawed Schaub’s foot off, and the Texans’ current quarterback dilemma. 610 has a transcript of the QB’s esponse about whether the Texans should look to draft a QB in a few days:

I think you have far more holes and far more issues on the roster and the depth chart than quarterback. And when you get to those picks, mid- to late-rounds, that’s how you build your roster. That’s how you accumulate talent that can play special teams, that can do multiple things for your football team. They don’t cost a ton of money, you can develop them and you can have solid starters in those rounds. You’ve got to be able to hit on the picks and find guys that work and fit what you’re trying to do with your system, whether it’s on offense on defense.

You can listen to the entire excellent interview by clicking here or playing the embed below.

The Texans currently sit at Pick #67. They don’t know what’s going to happen to Deshaun Watson from a legal standpoint. No one knows if the franchise’s plan is to trade Watson , hang on and try and resuscitate their relationship with him, or put him in a safe deposit box until next season. It’s reasonable to expect the last option and that Watson has played his last snap in Houston, with him getting traded next year once his legal situation is better defined.

With Tyrod Taylor at quarterback and players like Kellen Mond, and Kyle Trask expected to be available when the Texans finally pick at the top of the third round, Houston could use their first pck to select a project quarterback to groom for a season or two in an attempt to build the next good Texans football team.

But that shouldn’t be what they do. Houston should listen to Matt Schaub. They should ignore the idea of drafting a QB with one of their first few picks. The Texans have too many holes. They can get better players at more non-premium positions like center, guard, or defensive tackle at #67. They could also trade down, listen to the analytics, and increase the number of spins they have in a draft where the information is even more limited than usual.

Houston needs interior offensive line help, edge rushers, interior defensive linemen, cornerbacks, a running back, and another wide receiver. Building an environment now to improve the situation for the next long-term starting quarterback is what matters, not potential, development, and gold mining.