Texans quarterback CJ Stroud is entering a critical fourth season, particularly after his four-interception performance in the divisional round that helped end the club’s 2025 postseason.
Houston General Manager Nick Caserio said last week that if the club and Stroud don’t work out a contract extension before the season begins on Sunday, then it won’t be addressed until the offseason.
That would give the team more time to evaluate Stroud. But it would also give Stroud the opportunity to set himself up for a bigger payday with a strong 2026.
One of Stroud’s top weapons, receiver Nico Collins, said recently that he feels the quarterback is prepared to execute well in the coming season.
“He’s built for everything,” Collins said, via DJ Bien-Aime of ESPN. “We believe in him, we love him. This is the best position he can be in right now. I feel like he is about to go out and show the whole world what he’s made of, and I can’t wait. We got his back 100 percent, all the way.”
Stroud, the No. 2 overall pick of the 2023 draft, completed 64.5 percent of his passes for 3,041 yards with 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions in 14 regular-season games last year. He completed 51.9 percent of his throws for 462 yards with two TDs and five picks in the postseason.
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Shaq Mason is ready to resume his career.
Via Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, Mason was informed by the NFLPA that he will not face discipline from the league stemming from his 2025 arrest.
While Mason was facing allegations of an alleged domestic assault and was arrested in Aug. 2025, all charges were subsequently dropped in April of this year. The investigation into his legal matters is now closed.
Mason was released by the Texans in March 2025 and was not with a team last year.
A fourth-round pick in 2015, Mason spent his first seven seasons with the Patriots, winning two Super Bowls. He then played for Tampa Bay in 2022 — reuniting with Tom Brady — before heading suiting up for Houston in 2023 and 2024.
Mason has appeared in 152 games with 147 starts in his career.
He remains a free agent who is eligible to immediately sign with a club.
Wide receiver Tank Dell and the Texans have worked out a revised contract for the coming season.
Per Spotrac, Dell has agreed to a one-year, $1.7 million contract for 2026. The move comes with $1 million in guaranteed money and saves the Texans nearly $2 million in cap space.
Dell has not played in a game since suffering a severe knee injury late in the 2024 season. He will miss at least the first four games of this season after going on injured reserve this week in order to give him more time to work his way back from that injury.
The 2026 season is the final one on Dell’s rookie contract and he’ll need to make a full return in order to put himself in the mix for another deal in Houston.
In each of the past two seasons, Kayshon Boutte ranked second in receiving yards among Patriots wideouts and first or tied for first in receiving touchdowns. His reward? A trade to Houston.
The Patriots traded for A.J. Brown in the offseason, signed free agent Romeo Doubs and brought back DeMario Douglas, Kyle Williams and Mack Hollins. That left Boutte as the odd receiver out, and Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said in explaining the trade that Boutte “probably would have been inactive” on game days if he had remained in New England.
Boutte responded Thursday.
“They did pay two guys to come in and do that job,” Boutte said, via Timothy Rapp of the Bleacher Report. “Sadly, it is the way it is. Being that it’s a contract year for me, I [sought] a bigger role. I feel like what Vrabes said in his media interview, it wasn’t nothing bad. I wouldn’t say I’ll use that as fuel. . . . It was an honest opinion. He sat there, talked, [spoke] his truth, and [we’ll] pretty much move forward from it.”
The Texans needed a receiver after losing Jayden Higgins to a season-ending torn ACL last month. Boutte, who has 76 receptions for 1,140 yards and nine touchdowns over the past two seasons, joins Nico Collins, Xavier Hutchinson, Jaylin Noel and Jared Wayne in the wide receivers room.
“I think it’s always good when the team wants you to come here,” Boutte, 24, said. “They truly believe in your ability, big playmaking ability. I would just say for me, just doing what I always do, not overthinking it, try to catch everything that comes my way. At the end of the day, I know it’s a big year for me, so I make the most of my opportunities.”
Boutte is in the final year of his rookie deal, scheduled to become a free agent in the offseason.
More and more NFL figures are addressing the current chaos in college football. And most of them don’t like it.
Texans G.M. Nick Caserio joined the chorus on Tuesday, with two observations.
“First of all, it’s ridiculous,” Caserio told reporters. “Secondly, it doesn’t really impact our job. The whole concept, we could spend an hour having that discussion. It doesn’t necessarily materially impact kind of what we’re doing specific to training camp and those types of things. If they are in college, if they go back to college, you just evaluate them as if you would through the college lens, through the college process. We didn’t have any players that fell under that restraining order so it wasn’t really going to affect us. Conceptually it’s affected basketball as well. There was a kid that went back to Alabama that was in the G-League. Look, if you’re a professional player then you’re a professional player. To go from being a professional player to a college athlete or amateur athlete, the whole thing is kind of ridiculous.”
But is it really ridiculous to expect the NCAA to adopt a five-year rule while also denying a fifth year to those who didn’t have access to one? Plenty of players who entered the draft would have stayed put if they’d known they’d have another year.
All problems in college sports trace to a system that denied compensation to players for as long as possible and the problems the reckoning has created. The players are simply reacting to the circumstances, and attempting to secure fair treatment under the relevant rules.
Regardless, the process of sorting out who will and won’t be able to play college football this year after spending time on 90-man rosters continues. And the NFL will proceed unaffected by the situation, except for the fact that the players who return to college can’t be signed by NFL teams during the 2026 season.
Former NFL assistant coach Kippy Brown died this week, Matt Young of the Houston Chronicle reports. Brown was 71.
Brown spent 22 seasons as an NFL assistant, coaching for seven different teams. His final job was the wide receivers coach with the Seahawks on Pete Carroll’s staff from 2010-14. The Seahawks’ win in Super Bowl XLVIII gave Brown his only Super Bowl ring.
Brown was Jimmy Johnson’s offensive coordinator for two seasons with the Dolphins and served as the Lions’ associate head coach under Rod Marinelli during Detroit’s 0-16 season in 2008. He interviewed for the Texans’ head coaching job in 2006 after Dom Capers was fired, but Houston hired Gary Kubiak instead.
Brown coached Hall of Fame wide receiver Andre Johnson in his four seasons in Houston.
In addition to the Dolphins, Seahawks, Lions and Texans, Brown also coached with the Bucs, Jets and Packers.
Brown was head coach of the Memphis Maniax in the short-lived XFL in 2001.
As a player, Brown became the first Black quarterback to play at Memphis during his time there from 1974-77.
The wait for wide receiver Tank Dell to return to the Texans lineup will last at least four more games.
Dell was placed on injured reserve as the team moved to a 53-man roster on Sunday and that gives him more time to work on regaining his form after the knee injury that has kept him out since late in the 2024 season. On Tuesday, Texans General Manager Nick Caserio shared why Dell went on injured reserve after avoiding the physically unable to perform list to open camp.
“I’d say he’s close,” Caserio said at a press conference. “He is not quite there, which is why he’s in the category that he’s in. I think we’ll have a better idea with a lot of these guys after four weeks or four games, whatever it is. I’d say he’s definitely closer now than he was — let’s say in training camp. There’s a little bit more work that remains. Overall, he’s in pretty good spirits. There are certain things we just have to see. Some of this too, is honestly for him mentally to make sure he has enough confidence so that he can go out there and perform the way he’s capable of, the way he knows how to.”
The Texans traded for Kayshon Boutte after Jayden Higgins tore his ACL this summer, but the return of a healthy Dell would still be a needed boost to the receiving corps at some point this season. It will be several weeks before we have a better idea of when such a return might be possible.
The Texans are taking a page from the Steelers’ book on contract negotiations.
The Steelers have long refused to engage in contract negotiations with players during the regular season and Texans General Manager Nick Caserio said that Houston will take the same approach with quarterback C.J. Stroud this year. Caserio said in July and again on Tuesday that the team has had talks with the 2023 first-round pick about a new deal, but that those talks will be put on hold when the Texans face the Bills in Week 1.
“If we don’t get it figured out before the season starts, then it’ll be something we address in the offseason,” Caserio said, via DJ Bien-Amie of ESPN.com.
The Texans have already picked up their option on Stroud’s contract for 2027, so the quarterback will remain under contract regardless of how things play out on the field this year. A strong season would make it harder for the Texans to continue playing the waiting game, but anything resembling Stroud’s postseason performance from last season would lead to a lot of questions about the future of the quarterback position in Houston.
Texans General Manager Nick Caserio shared a handful of roster moves that the team made during a press conference on Tuesday.
Offensive tackle Braden Smith is going on injured reserve as a result of the foot injury he suffered in practice last week. Smith will have to miss at least four games before he can be returned to the active roster in Houston.
Caserio said that offensive lineman Sam Hagen will also be placed on injured reserve.
The Texans will fill the two roster spots by re-signing tight end Brevin Jordan and defensive lineman Dominique Robinson. Both players were released as part of the team’s moves to get down to the 53-player limit on Sunday.
The Texans have their initial 53-player roster.
They announced a series of moves Sunday that included the termination of the contracts of CB Bryce Hall, linebacker Caleb Johnson, defensive tackle Naquan Jones, wide receiver Zay Jones, tight end Brevin Jordan, safety George Odum, defensive end Dominique Robinson, quarterback Brett Rypien, wide receiver Sterling Shepard and wide receiver Justin Watson.
The Texans waived defensive tackle Dominic Bailey, wide receiver Lewis Bone, cornerback Brandon Codrington, center Eli Cox, cornerback Stephen Hall, tight end Louis Hansen, linebacker Jamal Hill, cornerback Alijah Huzzie, running back Jawhar Jordan, wide receiver Josh Kelly, offensive tackle Jarrett Kingston, safety Kaevon Merriweather, offensive tackle James Neal III, defensive end Derek Parish, tight end Layen Pryor, wide receiver Treyvhon Saunders, wide receiver Daniel Sobkowicz, running back Deuce Vaughn, running back Noah Whittington and running back Owen Wright.
Defensive end Solomon Byrd and defensive tackle Kyonte Hamilton were waived with injury designations.
Wide receiver Tank Dell and safety Ja’Marcus Ingram were placed on injured reserve with a designation to return.
Defensive end Ali Gaye went on season-ending IR.
Linebacker E.J. Speed and safety M.J. Stewart were placed on reserve/PUP.
