Houston Texans Make a Trade and Attempt Another For Keenan Allen
Nick Caserio continues movement across the draft board and attempted player trades.
Hey everyone, TC here,
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What a wild ride this free agency period has been. Not only for the Houston Texans but for multiple organizations across the league.
Three stories occurred this past week that piqued my interest, beyond the norm, that I wanted to cover further.
Keenan Allen Attempted Trade
On Friday multiple reports, including comments direct from Keenan Allen, had the Houston Texans in on the trade talks with the Los Angeles Charges for the veteran wide receiver.
Ultimately the trade was consummated with Chicago sending their 4th round pick, 4.110, to Los Angeles in exchange for Keenan Allen and his current contract unadjusted.
Aaron Wilson, of KPRC2 News, reported Houston offered a 2025 3rd-round draft selection and a day 3 draft pick swap to acquire Allen and his current contract. There have been no further reports on specifics on the “day 3 pick swap”.
To the trade calculator! Thanks
for the awesome tool and visual.
For this package comparison, we need to determine the value of the draft selection sent by Chicago. The OTC point system is my preferred system since it incorporates future potential over a standard asset. The Hill (Rich Hill) chart is based on the history of player performance and past trade history.
The Johnson chart, while outdated, is utilized by all the teams during negotiations to ensure both sides are speaking the same language. From there each team will reference their internal point system to make the final decision.
I had to make some assumptions on the day 3 pick swap. I reviewed the current draft order on Overthecap and found that Houston had draft selection 6.181 and Los Angeles had draft selection 6.181. Note: I am using the default 10% decline for future year’s picks.
Based on this information the two packages are nearly equal in value. The Johnson and Hill charts came out with a slight advantage, in value towards Houston.
What made Los Angeles choose Chicago’s offer over Houston’s? Speculation on my part would say Los Angeles was looking for an immediate return versus playing against the variance of the 2025 draft selection.
An additional reason could be the draft board value of the 2024 draft class. By most accounts, the 2024 draft class is deep at multiple positions reaching into early day 4 draft selection land.
Los Angeles has a new General Manager and Head Coach and is looking to overhaul their roster sooner rather than later. GM Joe Hortiz, a long-time disciple of Ozzie Newsome, could bring that mid-draft success to Los Angeles.
Draft pick trade with Minnesota
Friday morning the news machine kept turning with a trade announcement between the Houston Texans and the Minnesota Vikings. A trade that would have many Houston fans questioning why.

Houston traded out of the first round back to 2.42 picking up a 6th-round selection and a 2nd-round selection in 2025. The trade yielded a surplus value equal to a mid-3rd-round draft pick.
The initial reaction from the fanbase was asking why the Texans would trade out of 1.23 with clear needs at defensive tackle (DT), cornerback (CB), and wide receiver (WR).
My read on the situation is this. Houston looked hard at the draft board with player value between picks 1.20 and 2.50. The team looked at their draft board evaluations and identified a minimal drop in player valuation.
The team also took a look at Minnesota’s future projections post the Kirk Cousins era, projected Minnesota to likely finish with a Top 15 draft selection in the 2nd round.
One of the best paths to maximizing surplus value in roster building happens in a few places, but one of the best places to take advantage is in the 2nd and 3rd-round of the draft. Granted it is easy to make such a statement because the team still needs to draft the right player.
The below charts show the depreciation of the surplus value of expected outcome per draft selection by position. In simple terms, how much extra value should a team expect for their draft pick if they meet expectations based on past performances compared to a veteran at the same position?
Hover your mouse over the chart to view interactive data points.
As you can see in the visual above the expected outcome, in terms of APY value, is minimal from draft slot 1.23 to 2.42. The mean difference between the two draft slots, above the three positions of wide receiver, cornerback, and interior defensive line is $1.011 million APY value. That value represents replacement level value.
Surplus value is defined as the expected APY value over the rookie contract APY value.
Closing Thoughts on the Draft Pick Trade
Houston now has four draft selections in the 2nd-round over the 2024 and 2025 seasons, providing a potential boon in surplus value.
Judging a trade through various lenses can cause noise. I try to segregate the specific questions to minimize the noise:
Did Houston move out of the 1st round where premium talent potentially could be available? Yes
Did Houston find potential value, over two years, with this trade? Yes
Can Houston still find a premium talent at slot 2.42? Yes
Could this plan backfire and hurt the team in the long and short term? Yes
Who knows…maybe Houston packages some of these picks to move back up into the back end of the first round of this year’s draft.
Nick Caserio has become the ultimate wild card, and frankly…I am here for it.
-TC
Find it fascinating Texans are taking polar opposite approach in attacking 2024 draft class than the 2023 NFL draft class. Going big & using a ton of draft capital to move up #2 to grab Will Anderson (glad they did) to trading down from first round (somewhat facilitated by fact they used last years 2nd on Anderson) yet same time not waiting around to see is exactly available #23 (my hope is it’s not a top 15 graded player @ position of need, Byron Murphy, Quinyon Mitchell or Byron Thomas) I’ll be sick. Odds are stacked against it but you just never know. Now we can focus on 2nd rd graded players, knowing Texans will have two 2nds again next year.