Defensive end Will Anderson signed a contract extension with the Texans this offseason, but their other 2023 first-round pick did not land a similar deal.
Quarterback C.J. Stroud’s fifth-year option was exercised, so he remains under contract in Houston through the 2027 season and the steady word from the team has been that they are fully committed to him as the leader of their offense. A rough end to last season has been seen as a possible reason for slow-playing a long-term deal that reflects that commitment and Stroud was asked his feelings about the contract situation during a Thursday press conference.
“I let my agent handle it. If it’s time to do it, then it is,” Stroud said. “My job is football, so that’s what I focus on is just getting better. I think I’ve held my bargain up on that edge. Whatever happens, happens. I am excited to be a Texan this year and go from there.”
The Texans have advanced to the playoffs and won a game in each of Stroud’s three seasons, which is less than some other quarterbacks who have landed long-term deals have done to open their careers. It hasn’t been enough to make Stroud’s deal the top priority in Houston, however, and Stroud may need to show even more in Year 4 to ensure that he’s with the Texans for the long run.
Texans Clips
Tuesday’s decision by the Supreme Court to not accept the NFL’s petition for appeal in the Brian Flores case means that all of his claims will be decided in court, not in arbitration.
And Flores recently added some new factual allegations to the various legal theories raised in his four-year-old litigation against the league and various teams.
In the third amendment to his initial civil complaint, Flores has added specific allegations of retaliation against the NFL.
The 483-paragraph, 106-page document includes at paragraphs 298 through 312 allegations that the NFL has retaliated against Flores since the filing of his initial lawsuit.
“Despite it being widely understood by the public and sports media that Mr. Flores should be considered one of the elite Head Coach candidates, Mr. Flores has not been offered a Head Coach job since starting this lawsuit,” the new complaint alleges at paragraph 311.
From paragraph 312 of the new complaint: “The NFL teams’ failure to hire Mr. Flores is consistent with an NFL Head Coach hiring process that is [sic] has for decades treated Black candidates disparately to white candidates and led to significantly disparate impact. It is also consistent with a culture of retaliation in which NFL teams close ranks against those who raise complaints of discrimination.”
The new factual allegations did not result in an additional cause of action; the existing lawsuit already includes multiple specific claims for retaliation.
As to the concept of retaliation based on the failure of teams to hire Flores as its head coach, the current complaint lists only one team — the Texans. In 2022, Houston made Flores one of three finalists for the job (along with Josh McCown and Jonathan Gannon) before hiring Lovie Smith instead. Flores claims that the decision to not hire him was motivated by the filing of his lawsuit against the NFL and multiple teams.
Although no specific other teams have been accused of failing to hire Flores in retaliation for filing and pursuing his lawsuit, the discovery process could lead to evidence that would support a finding that Flores was not given proper consideration by one or more teams with vacancies during the 2023, 2024, 2025, and/or 2026 hiring cycles.
The contention that the NFL maintains a “culture of retaliation” shows that Flores suspects his failure to get more interviews and/or any offers resulted from retaliation. Time will tell whether other specific teams are added to the case as defendants.
Flores’s current claims target the Dolphins, Texans, Broncos, and Giants. (His co-plaintiffs, Steve Wilks and Ray Horton, have sued the Cardinals and Titans, respectively.)
Obviously, Flores won’t be able to force any team to hire him. His aggressive legal arguments won’t make that any easier. Throughout the litigation, however, he has chosen doing what he believes is right over what would be expedient for his career.
And so he’ll continue to serve as Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, while waiting for a head-coaching opportunity that may never materialize. In the end, the NFL and/or specific teams could be on the wrong end of a verdict that requires them to pay Flores as if he has been a head coach since 2022.
Even if Flores never becomes a head coach again.
Wide receiver Nico Collins said recently that he wants to spend his entire career with the Texans and he’s now set for at least the next two seasons in Houston.
Collins’s agents Drew and Jason Rosenhaus told Adam Schefter of ESPN that Collins has agreed to an adjusted contract with the Texans. Collins will get a $9 million raise in 2026 and an $8 million pay bump in 2027. Both year’s salaries are now fully guaranteed as well.
Collins is now set to make $29 million this season and $29.2 million in 2027, which bumps Collins well up the standings for annual average salaries among wide receivers.
Texans General Manager Nick Caserio was adamant this offseason that the team had no interest in trading Collins. With the revised contract in place, there’s now little reason for Collins to think about moving on before it becomes time to think about possible free agency in 2028.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court declined to accept the NFL’s appeal in the case brought by Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (and Steve Wilks and Ray Horton). The decision allows his case to proceed in court — and, in theory, to culminate with a public trial.
Both sides have issued comments in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“We respect the Supreme Court’s decision not to grant review,” a league spokesperson said. “Regardless of the forum, we are fully prepared to defend ourselves as this matter proceeds.”
Said Flores’s lawyers: “We are pleased that the Supreme Court declined to accept the NFL’s appeal. The NFL must now accept that its commissioner cannot be the arbitrator over discrimination claims against the league and its teams. We look forward to litigating these claims in court.”
Obviously, the league wants the forum to be its in-house arbitration process. It keeps things secret, and it tips the scales of justice in the league’s favor.
But, no, the NFL won’t suddenly surrender. It will aggressively challenge Flores at every turn, with the goal of securing a victory without having to take the case to trial.
When will that happen? It could take months. Maybe years. After all, it took nearly 52 months to get the case past the threshold question of whether the claims will be resolved in court or in arbitration.
The NFL’s in-house arbitration process isn’t dead, but it’s on the verge of a TKO.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the NFL’s petition for appeal in the Brian Flores case.
From the 25-page document submitted by the league in January 2026, this is the question the NFL presented to the U.S. Supreme Court: “Whether an arbitration agreement governing disputes in a professional sports league is categorically unenforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act because it designates the league commissioner as the default arbitrator and permits the commissioner to develop arbitral procedures.”
The league wisely made the question narrow, in order to avoid the possibility that the league’s arbitration process would be taken to its logical extreme. If the NFL can make the Commissioner the default arbitrator for any employment disputes or other legal claims made by employees, every American corporation could make the CEO the default arbitrator for any employment disputes or other legal claims made against it by its employee.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had found that the NFL’s arbitration agreement was not enforceable due to the Commissioner’s power over the process. The decision not to take the appeal doesn’t operate as an agreement by the Supreme Court; however, if the Supreme Court wanted to endorse the league’s longstanding in-house process, it could have taken up the case and then reversed the outcome.
The current legal posture doesn’t prevent the NFL from arguing its position in cases that arise in other courts. However, there’s now a clear path to suing the NFL and avoiding the mandatory arbitration clauses in non-player employment contracts by suing the NFL in New York federal court — since the Southern District of New York falls within the Second Circuit.
As to Flores, the development means that his claims against the NFL, Dolphins, Broncos, Giants, and Texans (and the claims made by Steve Wilks against the Cardinals and Ray Horton against the Titans) will be resolved by the judicial process. With full discovery. And, absent a settlement or a successful motion for summary judgment, with a trial in open court. All facts will be introduced and developed and exposed to public scrutiny.
That could spark a settlement, sooner than later. The league uses arbitration due in part to its desire to keep its business secret. Unless it goes away, the Flores case could result in all sorts of things the NFL would rather us not know playing out in the public eye.
Houston is bringing back a defensive player.
According to multiple reports, the Texans are signing linebacker K.C. Ossai.
Ossai initially came into the league last year as an undrafted free agent with the Texans. But when he did not make the 53-man roster, he signed with Miami’s practice squad.
The Dolphins waived Ossai earlier this month.
The Texans are adding some depth at receiver.
Houston is signing Jha’Quan Jackson, according to Aaron Wilson of KPRC Houston.
Jackson, 26, was a Titans sixth-round pick in 2024. He appeared in 12 games as a rookie, returning 28 punts, averaging 7.7 yards. He also returned 16 kicks, averaging 25.8 yards.
Tennessee waived him last August as a part of their roster cuts to 53 players.
Since then, he’s spent time with the Saints and the St. Louis Battlehawks of the UFL.
Texans linebacker E.J. Speed partially tore a quadriceps and a quadriceps tendon while lifting weights in the offseason program, Aaron Wilson of KPRC reports.
Dr. Dan Cooper, the Cowboys’ team doctor, will perform Speed’s surgery, and Speed is expected back “at some point” this season, Wilson adds.
Speed re-signed with the Texans on a two-year deal with a maximum value of $13 million, including $7.5 million guaranteed, this offseason. He had signed a one-year, $5 million contract with the Texans in the 2025 offseason.
Speed totaled 62 tackles, two quarterback hits and a pass defensed in 16 games with nine starts last season. He played 44 percent of the defensive snaps and 52 percent of the special teams snaps in the games he played.
The Colts made Speed a fifth-round pick in 2019, and he spent six years in Indianapolis.
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has a tiger by the tail. And he’s pulling it, hard.
Via Daniel Kaplan in an item published by Front Office Sports, Flores will be amending his complaint against the NFL and multiple teams on Wednesday to include a claim for retaliation. The alleged basis for the retaliation is Flores’s opposition to the NFL’s enforcement of its arbitration provisions in employment agreements.
The argument is simply stated, even if it will be difficult to prove. He’ll argue that his head-coaching prospects have been blocked by his aggressive, and to date successful, assault on the NFL’s habit of requiring coaches to agree to contracts that require all disputes to be resolved by arbitration ultimately controlled by the league.
Flores has secured multiple victories on that front, culminating in a federal appeals court scrapping the league’s longstanding practice of forcing coaches to submit to an in-house procedure that has the head of the organization — the Commissioner — ultimately responsible for processing and deciding claims made against the NFL and/or its teams.
Flores, who continues to be one of the most successful defensive coordinators in the NFL, has been unable to get a second head-coaching job since being fired by the Dolphins after the 2021 season. (His pending lawsuit includes a retaliation claim against the Texans for not hiring him in the aftermath of the filing of his race discrimination case against the NFL and multiple teams.)
Kaplan also reports that Flores has sought information from all 32 teams about their hiring practices, now that the discovery process is moving forward.
Flores filed his lawsuit in early 2022. For most of the past four-plus years, the case has been bogged down as to the threshold question of whether the claims will be processed in arbitration, or in open court.
It’s gutsy, to say the least, for Flores to keep pushing these issues as aggressively as he is. Businesses like the NFL don’t like to be sued. It will make it harder for Flores to get another head-coaching job, even if he’s been kept out due to improper motivations.
Still, if he truly believes in his position, he’s doing the right thing by refusing to back down.
That said, proving retaliation will be a challenge. No one will admit to it. His lawyers will be required to show through circumstantial evidence and/or aggressive cross-examination that the stated reason(s) for not hiring Flores are a pretext for a prohibited consideration.
The Texans will have joint practices with two teams this summer.
Their joint practice with the Panthers before the final preseason game on Aug. 28 was previously reported on Monday. The Texans also will hold a joint practice with the Raiders ahead of the Aug. 20 preseason game in Houston, Jonathan Alexander of the Houston Chronicle reports.
New Raiders coach Klint Kubiak is the son of Gary Kubiak, who was the Texans’ head coach from 2006-13.
It will give Raiders quarterbacks Kirk Cousins and Fernando Mendoza a chance to take snaps against one of the league’s top defenses.
