Houston Texans: Four unrestricted free agents the team must re-sign
Free Agent #3: Kareem Jackson
Remember when Kareem Jackson was regularly the whipping boy in his early years as a member of the Houston Texans? Little did we know that he was just learning the game as a pro and he’s morphed into a solid football player that has shown he has the ability to play multiple positions in the secondary.
He was supposed to be playing safety — he ended up just taking 135 snaps — for most of the season but with the injuries to Kevin Johnson and Kayvon Webster, the team had to bring him back to cover wide at cornerback and he flourished in his role, proving that he can still get the job done at his natural position.
Jackson just finished up his four-year, $34 million extension that he signed back in 2016 and at 30-years-old, he’s up for renegotiation.
KJax was one of the bright spots in the secondary this season and it would’ve been worse had he not been around to help cover some of the league’s best wide receivers.
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Jackson finished the season with 75 tackles — 10 assisted — along 12 missed tackles (the most of his career) with 34 run stops, two interceptions and 10 pass breakups through 1,055 snaps.
Through 89 targets, QB’s had a 77.0 rating when throwing to him and players had a 64.0 reception percentage when in his territory, which both are excellent trends to career-highs.
PFF has him at 79.5 grade overall, 90.3 run defense (leads all CBs), 68.8 tackling, 64.3 pass rush and 74.2 in coverage. He ranked 2nd among cornerbacks with at least 931 snap counts.
Oh, and it gets better — here’s this off season’s most notable free agent CB class: Morris Claiborne, Jason McCourty, Orlando Scandrick and Bryce Callahan. Are you excited yet? I hope not because Jackson’s health was relatively solid this season and has performed better than any of those aforementioned guys. Callahan is quite talented but methinks the Chicago Bears are going to re-sign him.
It’s likely that the Houston Texans will invest in a cornerback early in this draft to address the issues in the secondary but signing Kareem will provide some badly-needed stability at position that needs it the most as this unit undergoes a sort of a rebuilding project.
This is one of the most important decisions that the Houston Texans will make and I’m all for bringing Jackson back. But it’s a matter of if Jackson wants to be back because his value is quite high and there will be teams wanting to sign him. It’s up to the Texans on how much they’ll pay based off what the market is offering him. We’ll have to see.