(SportsRadio 610) - As of Monday, the Texans ranked 18th among 32 NFL teams in salary cap space.
The league informed teams the salary cap for the 2022 season is set at $208.2 million. That leaves the Texans with $16,850,873 in cap space, and nine teams operating in the red. But expect this change over the next week as free agency begins March 16 and teams let go of players to clear the books.
Texans general manager Nick Caserio is happier with the team's asset allocation now as opposed to when he first started last year, from salary cap structure to having the No. 3 overall pick in the NFL Draft.
Decisions will have to be made on which players will become cap casualties.
The Athletic's Aaron Reiss listed four candidates the Texans could release to save money - OT Marcus Cannon ($5.2 million cap savings); LB Kevin Pierre-Louis ($3.1 million cap savings); S Eric Murray ($5.4 million cap savings) and OL Justin McCray ($2.3 million cap savings).
Houston also has two premium trade candidates in Deshaun Watson and Laremy Tunsil. A Watson trade would create $24.2 million in cap space, and a Tunsil trade would create $9.5 million.
Those players' trade market is something to continue monitoring this offseason.
“I'd say cap-wise we're in a little bit better situation than we were kind of the start of last off-season," Caserio said last week from the NFL Scouting Combine. "You can create cap space in many different ways, so you want to have a manageable amount. I'd say your cap situation is also going to dictate the pool of players that you're going to maybe have an opportunity to add to your roster during free agency, but I'd say philosophically our belief is the value of the player commensurate with the role, and you try to match those up. OK, so the role is X; OK, that role is worth X number is worth this. OK, if the value of the player goes beyond what the role is, then you have to make a determination, is it worth pursuing that player or you know what, we're going to have to let him go and try to find somebody else that maybe fits the role that we have in mind.
"I would say kind of looking at the economics and being fiscally responsible is certainly something that has always been a big part of something I believe in. It doesn't preclude you from signing somebody that maybe is going to be cost prohibitive, but it's going to come at the expense of maybe X number of players. You just have to be thoughtful of the ramifications it has on the overall team, not specific to the one player."