One week into NFL free agency agency season, one thing has become abundantly clear — the Houston Texans' sequence of transactions over the last week, in particular the signing of defensive end Danielle Hunter and the trade for running back Joe Mixon, has put the Texans firmly in the conversation for, at a minimum, Super Bowl dark horse team.

After all of the transactions involving actual human beings, the one move that nobody really saw coming (at least not on March 15) was a swap of several draft picks with the quarterback-hungry Minnesota Vikings. Here are the particulars:

Vikings now have announced a draft-pick trade with the Texans:

🏈Vikings receive: No. 23 and No. 232

🏈Texans receive: No. 42, No. 188 and a 2025 2nd-round pick.

Minnesota now positioned to potentially pursue a quarterback in round one. pic.twitter.com/CcUntPpNmE

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 15, 2024

So, the major upshot of all this is that Texans' move out of the first round of this draft, down 19 spots from 23rd overall to 42nd overall, and in the process, they pick up an extra 2nd round pick in 2025, (rom a team widely believed to be rebuilding to some degree. That's important to note. (Of course, everyone thought the same thing about the Texans when they included their first round pick in 2024 in the Will Anderson trade, and we see how that worked out.)

Now, the chances of the Texans actually picking at 42nd overall on Day 2 of the draft is a coin flip, at best. Nick Caserio loves to maneuver around the draft, moving up to take a majority of the players he selected in 2024. What does this all mean, though? Let's examine:

At a very basic level, it means 23rd overall was a "dead zone" for the Texans
Let's start with the fact that the players with the highest success rate of becoming very good NFL players dips heavily after the top 10 or 12 players most draft seasons. So 23rd overall, even with a superior scouting department, is not a lock to yield a difference maker, at all. In this draft, though, a TON of the teams ahead of the Texans are going to be drafting quarterbacks, offensive lineman, and elite wide receivers. This pushes several defensive players and second tier WR prospects down the board, mores than previous years. In short, if the Texans have to accept the fact they could pick 42nd overall, if no one wants to trade with them, chances are much better THIS year that they get one of the top defensive players on their board at 42nd overall

If you're in the "draft a wide receiver" club, your dream came closer to coming true
Again, I can't overstate just how deep this draft class is with good wide receivers. There are anywhere from eight to ten that could go in the first round. There are several more who would be first rounders in other drafts, it's just this class is SO deep. I think the Texans are firmly in the market for at least one drafted wide receiver, and now that their first two picks are in the sweet spot to get a first round talent at a second round price, I think it's a LOCK that one of those picks (hell, maybe both, but I doubt it) will be a wide receiver. John Metchie and Xavier Hutchinson have been officially put on notice.

This trade does affect the 2024 salary cap, in a good way
If we are reading some of the tea leaves from late last week, Texans GM Nick Caserio, who may or may not be a cyborg,  still VERY much has his offseason thirst for improvement set at "AGGRESSIVE." On Friday, they restructured Shaq Mason's contract to open up cap space. This swap of picks means that the Texans opened up, according to the great Texans Cap, about $1.19 million in 2024 cap space. The rumors of the Texans missing out on former Chargers WR Keenan Allen (and his $18 million salary) would seem to indicate that opening up cap space had a specific reason. They missed out on Allen, but I'm sure Caserio is still fishing around for opportunities to improve.

If the Texans remain outside of the first round looking in, it does torpedo some fun stuff
The Houston Texans have held a major draft party at Miller Outdoor Theatre for each of the last two drafts, and they've been quite festive. Hell, I don't know that there will EVER be another draft party like last year, when the team took C.J. Stroud second overall and treaded up to take Will Anderson with the next pick. That was bananas! It's a whole lot easier to have a celebratory draft party when you have multiple first round picks, like 2022 and 2023 (thanks Deshaun Watson!). It's a little tougher for the atmosphere to pop with ZERO first round picks. I'm guessing the draft party is in jeopardy. Also, as someone who clicks on every mock draft that I see online, they become way less clickable when your team doesn't have a first round pick. Just saying.

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