I'm thinking about Watson's no trade clause. I'm not sure he would go to the Jets (bad franchise) that has to give up 2-3 years of top picks to get him - that's not a recipe for winning. My guess he vetoes that. With that said, there are rumblings of NE wanting Garropollo back. What about a 3 team trade that goes something like this:
NE - gets - Garropollo
- gives - 2021 1 (#15) and 2
- 2022 3
SF - gets - Watson, Mercilus
- gives - 2021 1 (#12), 2, 3
- 2022 1, 2, 3,
Texans - get - 2021 SF 1 (#12), NE 1 (#15), SF 2, NE 2, SF 3
- 2022 SF 1, 2, 3, NE 3
- give - Watson, Mercilus
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Texans get Mercilus' terrible contract off the books and assuming Texans could trade Watt for a 3 we would then have the following picks over next 2 years:
2021 - 2 1s (#12, #15), 2 - 2s, 3 - 3s
2022 - 2 1s, 2 2s, 3 3s
we don't have a QB in this scenario but would go from 4 picks in the first 3 rounds in 2021/2022 to 14 picks. We could take a QB at #12 or #15 and have him on a rookie contract and get a cheaper veteran. Getting Watt, Watson, Mercilus off cap would almost fix our cap overnight. After a rough 2021 transition year on the field and in dead cap we could be poised to "pop" again starting in 2022 if we find a decent QB.