Houston Texans: Terms of Bradley Roby’s new deal are quite surprising

The Houston Texans have re-signed cornerback Bradley Roby to a new deal, cementing his status as the lead corner. However, the terms are surprising.

Houston Texans fans — the NFL Player’s Association voting in favor of new collective bargaining this morning which will ensure that the 2020 NFL season will kick off as planned and teams can start working on making preliminary transactions before free agency opens up this Wednesday.

There was a lot of sluggishness with the Houston Texans in retaining their free agents because there was some sense of uncertainty of how the players would vote.  There was only a 60-vote margin between those who approved the new measures and those who did not.  There were 500 players that didn’t even vote which is alarming, especially when so much is at stake.

The big-ticket items that we will see in 2021 are the NFL schedule being extended one week to 17 games and a expanded playoff format.

I’d imagine despite the current environment we’re living in where we must all hunker down amid COVID-19 concerns, there would be a mechanism to where players can vote remotely because they’re all over the country.

But deals have been agreed upon for Brandon Dunn, Jon Weeks, Ka’imi Fairbairn and the latest report indicates that the Houston Texans have agreed to terms with Bradley Roby.

This move caught me by surprise because not only they were eager to re-sign him — despite missing six games last season with a hamstring injury — but they actually met in the middle on the terms of the contract that works in the best interest of both parties.

The Houston Chronicle’s Aaron Wilson is reporting that the deal is for three-years, $36 million total with $17M guaranteed.

Roby signed a one-year $10 million “prove it” deal with the Houston Texans this past season and it’s clearly obvious that he did enough to make that happen.

Despite him  being limited in action, he was quite talented when on the ball, making plays, deflecting passes and discouraging quarterbacks to throw his way because of his imposing presence out on the field.

I truly thought the team was going to move on Roby because they didn’t make much strong overture of his return.  This certainly means that this draft is going to focus more on the defensive line that should’ve performed better despite the significant investment made among the players.

I was thinking the Houston Texans were going to draft a cornerback high because of concerns of re-signing Roby but they’ll probably take one but it could be lower down in their draft pecking order.  The team just took Lonnie Johnson in the second round of last year’s draft.

But nonetheless, I’m glad to see Roby back in the midst and this stabilizes the uncertainty of not having a veteran leader in the secondary to succeed Johnathan Joseph, who will not be returning to the Houston Texans this season.

Whether Joseph decides to retire or keep on playing (which is what he prefers), there will always be a job for him in this organization when he actually does hang it up.

He should also be a first-ballot inductee to the Houston Texans’ Ring of Honor as he truly was one

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of the best free agency signings this team has ever made.  I’ll have to talk more about that in future post but I can’t thank Joseph enough for his contributions to this team’s success.

For now, let’s rejoice that we actually have some uplifting news in the sports world as we all navigate through these uncertain times.

Until then, take care of yourself and each other…

Roby accumulated 38 tackles — 35 solos — along with two interceptions, 1.0 sack, eight passes defensed, three tackles-for-loss and one defensive touchdown as well as a pick-six we all remember off Jameis Winston this past December.

Welcome back B!

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