It's hard to believe that it's been over two years now since the Houston Texans, more specifically general manager Nick Caserio, were able to pull off what has turned out to be one of the great heists in NFL history — the trade of quarterback Deshaun Watson to the Cleveland Browns. On that fateful day in March 2022, the Texans traded Deshaun Watson and a 2024 6th round pick for the following return:

* 1st round picks in 2022, 2023 and 2024
* 4th round picks in 2022 and 2024
* 3rd round pick in 2023

With as much as Caserio likes to trade up and down in the draft, it's hard to draw a direct line to whom exactly the Texans ended up acquiring as a result of those specific picks. The Texans held on to very few of them, often moving up and down from those slots. That hasn't stopped numerous outlets from trying to draw up some sort of flow chart to quantify the return.

If you click on four different articles talking about the return on the deal, you'll probably read about four different returns. Needless to say, the Texans are happy to be out of the Deshaun Watson business, a business that will cost the Browns $64 million in salary cap space in each of the next three seasons. Oh, and did I mention Watson is coming off shoulder surgery that ended his 2024 season early? Well, that's a fact, too.

So instead of trying to list players the Texans received directly and indirectly from those picks, I choose to list what the trade allowed the Texans do definitively do over the last two seasons. Here are four key things:

Greased the skids for the Will Anderson trade
Simply put, without the Deshaun Watson trade, Will Anderson is not a Houston Texan. The 3rd overall pick in the 2023 draft was acquired as a move up from Cleveland's first round pick in that draft, 12th overall. The premium pick that the Texans used to make the move was their own first round pick in 2024, a move that was less painful to make knowing that they also held Cleveland's  first round pick in 2024. The Watson return gave them the actual capital and psychological flexibility to execute arguably the second biggest trade in franchise history (first place being the Watson trade, of course).

Gave Caserio so many swings at the draft plate
Caserio himself admits that the draft is an inexact crap shoot. Every pick has a decent probability of failure. Thus, the more swings that you get in the draft, i.e. MORE picks, the better chance you have of acquiring impactful players. The Texans got six extra swings at the plate on the day of the trade, three of them being PREMIUM swings in the first round, and it's no coincidence that the depth of the team's roster has flipped completely in less than two years. The Texans were an awful football team when this trade went down. They're now a Super Bowl contender.

Tank Dell!
If there is one pick that we can trace back to the Watson trade nearly directly, it's Tank Dell in the third round of the 2023 draft. Dell went 69th overall, which was a move up four spots from the Browns' third round pick (73rd overall). That one is a shot enough move up to where I can thank Watson directly for that pick. I think Dell is going to be a superstar.

Cleared the deck for CJ Stroud
Perhaps the biggest benefit of the trade, in hindsight, has nothing to do with the draft picks acquired. Moving on from Watson cleared the path for the Texans to find another franchise quarterback, and as good as Watson was ON the field for most of his time as a Texan, C.J. Stroud is superior. Also, for now, he works far cheaper than Watson. Stroud will someday carry a cap hit in the $60 million per year range, but today is not that day.

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