Did the Texans overpay to aquire Wade?

[beerlover]

Just wanted to get your feedback on this. Its bothered me since the deal was done that so many respected publications, think the Texans overpaid. With Rickie Williams retirement this brought up the possibility that losing his primary lead blocker influenced his decision. One might suspect the closeness of at least the on field relationship, since both players are laying their bodies on the line for each other. It would seem to me the Texans reaped a significant value in Todd Wade as Domianck Davis lead blocker for years to come, ensuring Davis will resign with the Texans. Then how can all these so called experts say the Texans overpaid Wade?

[Fiddy]

I dont think they did. This is just speculation, because I dont know the details of the contract, but it seems to me that the Texas front office gives out big signing bonuses and smaller base salaries. So by giving a big signing bonus, it makes the Texans look like they overpaid. They did the same with D-Rob's and Babin's contracts this year.

[F-minus67]

i don't think that the team overpaid at all, because he is a young RT and has not reached the apex of his ability.Not to mention that he was on his rookie contract so based on his preformance the money he got was was due for helping Ricky Williams rush for like 3200 yards in the pass to years.

[TheOgre]

The Eagles paid Jon Runyan about the same amount about 4 years ago. It started a trend for some teams to pay quality RT's bigger salaries. Runyan has been a key compenent to the Eagles team that has been to 3 consecutive NFC Championship Games.

The Texans think they have acquired another Jon Runyan in Todd Wade. He may not have the same impact, but that is their belief.

I personally think that Wade is a superior pass and run blocker compared to Greg Randall. DD and Hollings should be able to run comfortable to the right with Wiegert, Wade, and either Joppru or Bruener blocking. It would be a bonus if Wand and Pitts developed cohesiveness on the left side too.

With the exception of Wand, the starting linemen seem more suited to run blocking than pass blocking. That shows you that the team has build this line to match their vision of run first, pass second.

[DominatorDavis]

They paid just a little above market value for Wade. It was a need that they had to fill. How much did they pay for Boscelli? Considering the risk - was that preceived as a bad move? Not at all. Especially since it allowed us to acquire Walker and Payne. So the Texans are not affraid to pay the right people for their abilities. And they wont be in the future either. If it was a little high...eh, big deal. They have plenty of cap room and are far from being in a financial pinch. We got the guy that we needed - can you really place a dollar value on that?

They are ultimately looking at what they are paying for their starting tackles. Wand is a 3rd rounder in his second year probably counting less than 500k for the year. Wade is 2.2 mil against the cap this year and only 3.1 million next year. That comes to 2.7 million for your starting tackles in 04 and 3.7 million next year in 05. What are the Raiders paying again? or the Broncos, Jacksonville, Bucs, Chargers or anyone really. We are on the cheap for that position and the leadership knows that. Good stuff.

Great thread question.

[done88]

The same people who say the Texans over paid are the ones who critized Casserly for drafting Hendon and for making DD the # 4 pick. They said the Texans needed O-line help and that O-lineman in both those positions were the correct move. They were wrong about Henson, DD, and Wade. Casserly is one of if not the best GM in the league.

Whoa now, let's hold back a bit in naming him the best GM in the league. He's had his share of foul ups and missed players in the draft. We didn't get as much for Henson as was initially thought and Wade hasn't played for us yet. He's had a couple of successes but then you have Boselli. It still remains to be seen if a few of the draft picks from the last 2 years are panning out (Weary, Hill (gone), Wells, Ragone, Gaffney, Joppru, Peek Wand, etc.) Give a little more time to grade him. I think after this year we can really see where the successes and failures were.

[Vinny]

We have only played two years....so the jury is out.

No Boselli means no Payne and Walker so you cannot always point to that as a failure.

3 players for the price of 2. Both players got injured and only played 40 games out of a total of 64 (64%). For the price paid for all the players, no it wasn't a great deal. Jags would have had to let go one of the those guys.

[Vinny]

Walker has been to a pro-bowl in one of the two seasons here! How can that be a negative? They are still starters. Injured or not. Still, they are players we didn't have to draft to develop. That freed us up to draft other players in other need positions.

[Fiddy]

Originally Posted by SESupergenius

3 players for the price of 2. Both players got injured and only played 40 games out of a total of 64 (64%). For the price paid for all the players, no it wasn't a great deal. Jags would have had to let go one of the those guys.

And if they did let go of them, what chance to we have of landing them. Dont point to the unpredictable, Walker will be playing this year and Payne probably will too and Boselli is off the books. We got two-thirds of a starting defensive line from that deal. It was a great deal...

[TheOgre]

It was a good deal that had the potential to be a great deal. I don't want to rehash the Boselli situaton for the upteenth million time.

I want you to find a GM that hasn't made a few personnel blunders though.

[Vinny]

We have had nothing but Journeymen at RT since we started this franchise two years ago and frankly, we have had the worst offense in the NFL during this time. We signed the best RT on the market and as long as he doesn't get an injury we no longer have to worry about this position for YEARS to come. After this move we have taken a line with 3 question marks LT, RT, and LG and made it a line with one of the best right sides in all of the NFL and a team with only really one question mark at LT. Since RT is secure with a top caliber player we can help Wand at LT more than we could afford to help Pitts with a journeyman caliber RT as a liability. We went from a line with huge question marks to a solid unit. Lets say we don't make this move. Then what? Draft a rookie and HOPE he pans out in two to three years? I think we did an excellent job this off-season addressing our needs. Kudos to the GM.

wow, some of you are looking back with some "can't do no wrong" attitude instead of looking at what actually happend.

Walker has been to a pro-bowl in one of the two seasons here! How can that be a negative?

Never said it was he was a negative, just the price we paid for it. We've gone over the cost benefit analysis of Boselli-Walker-Payne many times. As it stands we got 2 DL that play 64% of the time for the Boselli debacle. That did impact our ability to go after top tier free agents the past couple of years no matter how you slice it. If you add Boselli's salary to Walkers and Paynes, they'd be one of the highest paid players on any defensive line. Since there is a cap and we are investing a lot in 2 starters out of 11 on our defense, we've missed a couple of opportunities to go out add a higher quality player because of cap restrictions. Please don't think that eating 6 million does affect us. We ended paying for it by not upgrading an area of need last year, and essentially blew 6 million and having a guy like Deloach or Stephans start.

we have had the worst offense in the NFL during this time.

And during that whole time Boselli was inactiveand cost us a ton of money to play a quessing game and put a stranglehold on us to go out and get someone else. If we had never taken Boselli we'd have had one of the DL from the Jags, had picked up a LT high in the draft one of the last 2 seasons and probably be having more a 'unit' prepared going into this season instead of more line shifting going into the 3rd year.

Kudos to the GM for plugging holes I guess and getting a couple of good FA. But let's not claim him anything more than decent potential until the smoke has cleared.

I can see a grade of C+, but certainly not excellent

[Vinny]

Our team looks pretty loaded for a team that started from scratch 32 games ago. It would be tough for me to grade them with a near-failing C.

I understand that, and after this year we will clearly have a better picture at how good or bad the GM has done. I am just balancing out the good with the bad because there clearly has been some bad transactions as well as some good.

[Vinny]

Yeah, I agree on that point. There is good and bad with every team. We aren't an exception.

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by SESupergenius

...If we had never taken Boselli we'd have had one of the DL from the Jags, had picked up a LT high in the draft one of the last 2 seasons...

Picked up a LT in the previous 2 seasons? Well, there are currently 8 LT's that are listed as starters going into this season who were drafted in 2002 & 2003.

2002
Bryant McKinnie - Vikings - The Texans could have selected this huge LT, but David Carr would not be on the roster.

Levi Jones - Bengals - The Texans could have traded down as far as the 9th pick in the draft to select this promising LT. Still, no new Carr.

Mike Pearson - Jaguars - The Texans could have taken this guy with their 1st pick in the 2nd round. But, the Jags are hoping to replace Pearson with journeyman tackle Ephraim Salaam, so it's not as if he would have been the answer.

Kevin Shaffer - Falcons - Atlanta thinks this former 7th round pick is ready to start on the left side. Fortunately for Vick, that's not his blindside.

2003
Jordan Gross - Panthers - The Texans brought Gross in for a look see prior to the '03 draft, but went with Andre Johnson instead. Hard to question that decision.

Kwame Harris - 49ers - Penciled in at LT, but hasn't played the position to date. Went 25th in the draft.

Wade Smith - Dolphins - Drafted as a guard in the 3rd round, but pressed into service at LT due to injuries (remind you of someone?).

Seth Wand - Texans - Huge project both in terms of size and experience. TBD how he'll work out.

With the benefit of hindsight, the Texans could be entering the '04 season with the LT position secured if they had only selected McKinnie in '02 or Gross in '03. They just wouldn't have either Carr or Johnson.

What about free agency? Well a grand total of one LT left his team in '02 & '03. Then 32 years young Wayne Gandy left the Steelers & signed a 5 year $25 million contract ($8.5 million bonus) with New Orleans in 2003. Maybe the Texans could have pulled Gandy away from the Saints with an extra X million, maybe not.

Sure, the Texans swung & missed on Boselli. But to imply that the Texans would be much further in the O-line development had they not taken Boselli in the expansion draft doesn’t bear out. At least they would have had to pay a price in terms of another part of their roster. Casserly & Co. have licked their wounds and moved on to Plan B. What else can they do?

[nunusguy]

No doubt about it, the concensus is that we paid a humoungous premieum for
Wade. Had he been a front line LT, maybe not, but a 10 mill signing bonus for
a RT - RTs are basically glorified guards. But the way I see it, it balances out if
Wand is good enough to be our long-term LT, 'cause getting that with a 3rd pick is filling one of the most important positions on your team at a real discount.

[Lucky]

Originally Posted by nunusguy

...RTs are basically glorified guards.

These are some of the guys that NFL RT's are responsible for in pass blocking:

Michael Strahan
Ogunleye Adewale
Leonard Little
Trevor Pryce
Shaun Ellis
Terrell Suggs
Kevin Carter
Julius Peppers
Charles Grant
Kevin Williams

Pass rushers don’t just lineup over the LT any longer.