The Texans are right to spend a lot of time evaluating cornerbacks at the NFL Scouting Combine.
Cornerback is one of the team's greatest positions of need.
Johnathan Joseph, an unrestricted free agent, is going into his 15th season and will be 36 years old just a few days before the team's nine-week offseason workout program begins in April.
His body started to break down toward the end of the season and each season it becomes reasonable to expect less from the veteran.
Bradley Roby, arguably the Texans' best cornerback last season, is a free agent and no one seems to be optimistic about him returning to the team.
Lonnie Johnson Jr., last year's second-round pick for Houston, saw a lot of snaps but still has a lot of work to do.
So, the Texans are looking at cornerbacks in the draft.
Their first picks are in the second round (57th overall), and third round (90th overall). The top eight cornerbacks in the draft could all be gone by that point.
Pride is anywhere from a top 10-15 cornerback in the draft, depending on where you look.
Bill O'Brien said that for an outside corner, he's looking at "body type, movement skills, ball skills, instincts, the ability to tackle, the physical nature of the game the way some offenses are running the ball to the outside, the way some offenses are putting tight ends on the perimeter now."
The Texans will have new play callers with Anthony Weaver being promoted to defensive coordinator. O'Brien said he expects Weaver to bring new ideas and creativity to the defense.
Does either Conley or Johnson become that player, or is it someone from the draft or free agency?
Roby and Chris Harris might be out of the Texans' price range, but could they make reasonable deals with a Byron Jones, Logan Ryan or James Bradberry?
If we know anything about O'Brien as a "team-builder" at this point, it's that he only views the draft as one of several ways to improve a team. He talked about that Tuesday from the combine.
"I think one of the one of the things that's important to us is to do the best we can to keep our players, players that have been on our team," O'Brien said. "I think that's a really important thing for us, relative to where we're headed. Then there's all different kinds of ways that you can build a team, right? There's obviously the draft, there's free agency, there's the college free agent process. There's all different ways. So, we're taking all those things into account each and every day and trying to make decisions in the best interest of the team."
Here's how O'Brien answered a question about whether the Texans are far off from contending for a Super Bowl:
"We feel good about where we are on defense, but we also know that there's a lot of things that we have to work on, right?" O'Brien said after noting the talent on offense. "We know that 2020 will be definitely a different year than 2019. None of us like the way it ended, but we have to move on.
"We have to move on to this process of building our team for 2020, have a really good offseason program which is very important, and then proceed into training camp. We're really early in the process of building our 2020 team, but we're excited about where we are right now."
It only makes sense for them to be excited if there is a plan to improve at cornerback.
Fortunately, he's had enough practice over the past year.