Should Texans trade for Christian Kirk affect free agent or draft strategy?

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

The Texans traded for wide receiver Christian Kirk, who was likely to be a cap casualty by the Jaguars. Should this impact their draft or free agent strategy? Payne & Pendergast address that here.

Transcript

00:00The offseason is officially here. There's a new Houston Texan. What's going on Seth? How you feeling?

00:05Oh, I feel good man. You're not the new Houston Texan. That'll be fun though.

00:10Sorry, I was uh, you know, I checked Twitter about once every three days and somebody had

00:16just tweeted a photo of

00:18Jesus Christ, Seth Payne, and Jack Easterby. I'm trying to figure it all out. I got a little disoriented. I, yeah, um,

00:26I can't tell whether they're taking a shot at me or lauding me.

00:28So I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna leave it and check Twitter again in three days. Let Twitter handle that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:34Um, I feel good. I feel good about this Christian Kirk trade. Yeah, man. It's, it's, look,

00:38it's exactly what I was hoping for, which is the Texans have spent heavily to get some guys

00:46at marquee positions in terms of draft picks, in terms of dollars spent, and everything else like that.

00:52What they need now is a well-rounded football team and getting guys like Christian Kirk.

00:57Did I say Kirksey already? No, no, you didn't. You're doing great. Oh, yeah. Okay. Wait, let me give me a ding. Yeah.

01:02It's gonna be a good day, man. Because I said Christian Kirk instead of Kirksey. You did not. Yeah.

01:06So Christian Kirk is a guy that, when healthy, has done very well.

01:11And he's had kind of a rocky road in Jacksonville over the last few years.

01:15But you get him on what, as far as we know right now,

01:18it's a one-year deal. You give up a seventh round pick for a guy

01:22that was going to get his reigning year of his contract.

01:26And I think where the Texans have shown that

01:29they're a good place to go on a prove-it deal or a prove-it year, if Christian Kirk can just stay healthy,

01:36then A, he can provide us a lot of good football play, hopefully.

01:40But B, he can maybe leap board into a contract with the Texans or somebody else. And you're not,

01:46you're not, you're not committed to him for the long term.

01:49So I really like this deal on the surface of it. For those of you who don't know,

01:52Christian Kirk, very much a slot receiver. Takes 75% of his snaps in the slot.

01:57He's 5'11", 200 pounds. Not as small as Tank Dell, but not a big guy.

02:03He is a slot receiver.

02:04So there's still a very good chance that the Texans draft a wide receiver in the first round.

02:09But it would probably be somebody who's more of an outside guy.

02:12Yeah, I think that's what people need to know about this. If you're just kind of getting in tune,

02:15you probably saw that the Texans got Christian Kirk. Probably a lot of you did dive into the details.

02:20If you didn't, as Seth said, they were about to cut him.

02:23He signed the most lucrative, he signed one of the most lucrative wide receiver contracts in free agency ever at the time.

02:29For nearly $20 million a year. Back when the Jags were going on that spending splurge after Trevor Lawrence's first year,

02:36he signed a big deal. Like a lot of big deals like that, the last year is kind of

02:42phony money because it's not guaranteed. None of his money is guaranteed right now.

02:46So the Jags got to a point where he's been banged up the last couple years. Not worth the money.

02:51They need to go in a different direction with some other things.

02:53So they're about to cut him. This is a lot like the Joe Mixon trade last year.

02:56It's the exact same thing. The Bengals are about to cut Joe Mixon.

03:00I'm assuming Nick makes a phone call.

03:02Or maybe the Jukem has sent around picks so that it keeps everybody else out of the mix.

03:08He doesn't hit free agency or anything like that.

03:10And now I think it's in play too, Seth, with Christian Kirk, that they could do with Kirk what they did with Mixon last year.

03:17Assign him to a mini extension just to help with the cap a little bit.

03:24Well, I don't know about...

03:26$16 million. He's making $16 million this year. It's a big deal.

03:29No, no, no. There needs to be a restructure of some sort. Or there probably will be a restructure of some sort.

03:34The difference is that his injury history is concerning.

03:40And I wonder exactly what they'll do.

03:44Because I don't think he has as much of a justified reason to expect an extension.

03:54But there will be some kind of a tweaking.

03:55I get nervous about what the extension might be.

03:57I agree with you.

03:58I don't want him to sweeten the pot too much.

04:00No, I'm with you.

04:01Mixon came in a healthy player who was just a cap casualty.

04:04Kirk is a cap casualty who's missed a bunch of games the last two years.

04:08You touched on something else that I think people need to know.

04:10Which is, and this is just an opinion of mine.

04:14This should affect zero about how they attack the wide receiver position.

04:19Both throughout the rest of free agency, in my opinion.

04:23As well as, and certainly not in the draft.

04:26If you were of mind, if the Texans are putting their big board together.

04:30And it just so happens that guys like Matthew Golden and Luther Burden and Emeka Ibuka

04:35are fairly high up the overall big board.

04:38They're in the teens somewhere.

04:39The Texans are picking 25.

04:41And if one of those guys is there, like, wow.

04:44Signing Christian Kirk should affect none of how you look at the draft and wide receivers.

04:49Zero.

04:50I know.

04:50I think with Casario, and this is not unique to him.

04:55I think a lot of teams look at it this way.

04:57You want to go into the draft where you don't feel like you have a desperate need

05:02to draft for a specific position.

05:05Because if you want to draft best player available, go into the draft where you feel like,

05:09all right, we don't have a huge deficit at any of these spots.

05:13So we can take the best player available, perhaps at multiple needs of position.

05:17But it gets you closer to that point.

05:19Where, you know, if you go in, there have been times, remember, I mean, there have been

05:23times with the Texans where they went into training camp without a single defensive tackle

05:26on the roster.

05:27So that's the opposite of what you want to do.

05:29Yeah, yeah.

05:30Don't go to the grocery store hungry.

05:32It's a bad idea.

05:33You don't think rationally.

05:34Yeah, that's a really good analogy.

05:35Yeah, that's when I'm at my worst.

05:38Don't go to the grocery store hungry.

05:42Don't work in a bar when you're an alcoholic.

05:44Any of those things.

05:45Keep yourself away from temptation when you're at your most desperate.

05:48Temptation.

05:48That's a good way to put it.

05:51Don't go visit the animal shelter when you're depressed.

05:53Yeah.

05:54Because now all of a sudden you come home with 10 freaking puppies.

05:56That's a really good one right there.

05:59You and I actually talked about Christian Kirk yesterday.

06:01When I saw this trade go down, I'm like, hell yeah, man.

06:04Five hours after Seth and I got done going through the nerdy separation stats

06:09that we had in the show yesterday, which I thought were very telling.

06:11I think they're good stats.

06:13Separation yards at point of catch or incompletion.

06:17Basically, how open did the guy get?

06:18Yeah.

06:19You had compiled the list from next gen stats of the guys who were either

06:25via trade or release or whatever.

06:27Christian Kirk was pretty high up that list.

06:29The two names that we touched on yesterday

06:33based on where they might fall in price-wise compared to some of these

06:37were Elijah Moore, who was fourth among all these guys.

06:39It went Cooper Cup one, Chris Godwin two, Devontae Adams three, Elijah Moore four.

06:45So Elijah Moore has gotten a lot of separation with some really crappy quarterbacks.

06:49And then Christian Kirk was just a couple more guys down after that.

06:52Those were the two guys that we kind of zeroed in on just saying, look,

06:55it feels like Cup, Godwin, Adams, Diggs, Allen.

06:58Those are all guys that are just on pedigree alone are going to ask for at least

07:0215 to 20 million bucks.

07:03Whereas Elijah Moore, probably not so much.

07:06Kirk was still a Jaguar at the time, but all signs had pointed to him being available.

07:11And it turns out he was, and it turns out he's a Texan now.

07:13Yay Payne and Pendergast.

07:16As far as the injury stuff and concerns, it's not like he's been

07:19egregiously injury prone or anything.

07:22But he had a couple of years in Arizona where he was dealing with things.

07:26Then he had a relative stretch of health for three seasons, two seasons.

07:30His last year in Arizona and then his first year in Jacksonville.

07:32Remember when Jacksonville gave Christian Kirk that deal, they were widely panned for it.

07:39And then he came in and had a career year.

07:41He had 1,108 yards receiving with 84 receptions.

07:45But then since then, it was a combination of injuries.

07:48And then two years ago, Calvin Ridley was getting more targets.

07:54You get Brian Thomas, who's certainly the guy for the future for the Jaguars the next year.

07:59And Christian Kirk got injured again.

08:01There's, I don't know, getting a one-year deal, perhaps with an extension and only giving up a

08:08seventh-round pick.

08:09It's about widely being regarded by more objective people than you and I as a really good deal for

08:13the Texans.

08:14Yeah, what did he get, an A-minus from Seth Walder on ESPN on the report card?

08:17Yeah, so you got an A-minus on there.

08:19And I think he's, I think what we learned, he got paid like a number one back when he

08:23got the contract in free agency.

08:24But I think what we learned is when he's healthy, he's an excellent number two.

08:28And I think he's going to be an excellent complement to what Nico Collins brings to

08:31the table.

08:32And so we'll see what they, you got to keep filling that room up though, man.

08:36Like you still need bodies in that room right now, let alone capable bodies.

08:40So yeah, I'm with you on all that.

08:43His injury last year, if I'm not mistaken, was a broken collarbone.

08:47Right.

08:47Which that doesn't concern me as much about like the overall durability.

08:50That's just, that's bad luck.

08:52You know, like that's just, you got hit, you landed the wrong way.

08:55The year before, it was a core muscle injury.

08:58That worries me more.

08:59The core muscle stuff, it just, I go back to Benny Joprew on this stuff.

09:03Whenever you have anything from your, surrounding your innards, from your groin up to your innards,

09:09I get nervous because sometimes that speaks to some kind of biomechanical issue or something.

09:14But for whatever it's worth, it wasn't an issue last year.

09:17So it's been a couple of injury riddled seasons for him, but very much upside with Christian

09:22Kirk.

09:22Plus, wasn't Christian Kirk, I forgot to Google this.

09:25He's an Aggie, for those of you who don't know.

09:27But he's an Aggie.

09:28If I remember correctly, wasn't he, didn't he grow up with a father that really put him to work?

09:33I don't know.

09:34I want to say his father was a businessman of some sort and Christian Kirk had to basically

09:38work at his dad's business and train for football while he was growing up.

09:42I don't yet.

09:44So I'll ask him to do it.

09:46There's, there's, there's several Aggies up listening right now.

09:48Text in if that's the case.

09:50Text message.

09:50Several.

09:51The Aggies are all up at 4.30 AM.

09:53They've already milked the cows.

09:54That's right.

09:55Taking care of their ailing grandmother.

09:57Damn it.

09:57That's right.

09:58Uh, Jim Adler, the Texas hammer text line disagree, Sean.

10:01I don't think we pick up a slot receiver like a book.

10:03And now that's from champ slice.

10:06Yeah.

10:06I mean, I'm just talking wide receiver in general should not be, should not be diminished

10:12as a need in the draft.

10:14Like they shouldn't, they shouldn't start pushing wide receivers down their big board

10:18because they signed Christian Kirk attack wide receiver with the same ferocity that you were

10:22attacking it before this trade.

10:24It might make them feel, I guess if there's one thing we could look at, it's, Hey, some

10:29offensive coordinators really don't care too much about having a classic slot receiver.

10:34Whereas other offensive coordinators do.

10:36So for whatever Kaylee's input was into this, it's perhaps a move away from just, you know,

10:43being a, being a so heavily focused on lining up with two tight ends or anything else like

10:49that.

10:49They can be somewhat flexible if they've got a genuine wide slot receiver in there.

10:53You know that what this means to Seth, this trade, it means that Nick Casario has now

10:59done a trade.

11:00I believe this is the first trade ever executed by the magnificent Gladstone.

11:07The magnificent Gladstone released Evan Ingram, by the way, he did release Evan Ingram too.

11:11Yeah.

11:11Nick Casario was his first.

11:13Yes.

11:13Nick Casario.

11:14You always remember your first.

11:15Yeah, man.

11:16Nick Casario was the first for the magnificent Gladstone executing a trade.

11:19I hope he was gentle.

11:22I would love.

11:24I would love it.

11:25Gladstone has done studies on Nick Casario and the Patriots and the way they operate

11:30and probably looks at as Casario is kind of the, that's, that's where I want to be.

11:35That's what I want to get to.

11:36I like the way he operates.

11:37Yeah.

11:38So what Casario needs to do now is what Belichick had done with so many of his former

11:43protégés, which is really screw them over a lot of deals, you know, got to talk him

11:48into almost Jedi mind trick them into like, no, this is a really good deal for you.

11:52It is an angle though, independent of all the magnificent Gladstone hoopla that goes

11:56on.

11:56Okay.

11:56We're up against it.

11:57I want to bring up an aspect of this trade.

11:59Up against what?

12:00We're up against the clock.

12:01I thought he said he was going to be gentle.

12:03I can't, I cannot change the clock.

12:06I'm not the magnificent Gladstone.

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