The lesson of Laremy Tunsil

The Texans traded two first-round picks and a second-round pick for Laremy Tunsil in 2019, just before the season started, when they weren’t confident that Tytus Howard and Matt Kalil would be able to play left tackle immediately. I would like to tell you that I feel differently about that trade then I felt at the time — when I thought it was a disaster — because Tunsil played up to high standards. But there was never anything Tunsil could do to make this trade better. That is the lesson.

Waves of the past hit hard when I think about these two trades. The Texans got Tunsil because you’re supposed to protect your franchise quarterback — Deshaun Watson in this case. Watson’s sack rate declined nominally in 2019 and 2020 with Tunsil in the fold, though I would champion the idea that this had more to do with Watson’s growth in those years. And to give you some supporting data, as someone covering the team much more intently at the time, Watson took just one sack against the Jaguars in Tunsil’s lone scratch due to injury in 2019. He took zero sacks against the Patriots and four against the Titans in Tunsil’s two missed games in 2020. I would be less inclined to care about that Titans game because it was the end of season for a bad team and involved a Remembering Those Guys receiving corps of Brandin Cooks, Steven Mitchell, Chad Hansen, and Keke Coutee.

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And then the team collapsed on itself. Jack Easterby clearly had power for a few years, the roster was a mix of Easterby character lads and Caserio special teamers while Watson initially created a trade request and then upgraded that to becoming a pariah via sexual assault charges. Not only had trading for Tunsil bankrupted the Texans roster of talent, but the idea of having him blocking for Watson got downgraded to Davis Mills, Jeff Driskel, and Tyrod Taylor. The 2021 and 2022 Texans only existed in the sense that they were a waystation between points, a place where Eric Murray could kick his feet up on the sofa and pretend that with a little bit of hard work and gumption, you could beat the Jacksonville Jaguars no matter how little talent you had. And maybe one or two other teams a year. But mainly the Jaguars.

Laremy Tunsil was still Laremy Tunsil for the 2021 and 2022 Texans, but the fact that he cost what Laremy Tunsil cost to reel in was a big part of the reason the 2021 and 2022 Texans existed in the first place.

It isn’t Laremy Tunsil’s fault. He is one man blocking in a sport that requires five or six good blocks to get anywhere. He had an objectively good season last year (outside of penalties, of course), as he usually does. In every year that the Texans have had him outside of 2021, he has posted at least an 84.9 PFF pass block rating.

And C.J. Stroud was sacked 52 times, a 14-fold jump from 2023, because the idea of one blindside tackle being all you need to protect your young franchise quarterback is bunk. It is a collective effort of scheme, quarterback play, and work from all the linemen and supporting pass protectors.

That to me is a lesson that feels almost impossible for the league to learn and one that perpetuates throughout the years of Texans history, in a place where Alternate Universe David Carr was good because he had Alternate Universe Healthy Tony Boselli giving him extra time in the pocket. People battened down to that take, but if you watch the Carr sacks (gruesome), it was not exactly a virtuoso display of instinctive quarterback play under pressure in 2002. I think it’s more fair to say his ability to play under pressure never developed than it is to say that he was failed.

The best offenses provide the answer to pressure before it comes, be it through the quarterback adjusting protections or hot reads to the right spots. The Texans didn’t do this last year, which is why Bobby Slowik isn’t employed in Houston. The Texans didn’t do it in Deshaun Watson’s years. The Texans also didn’t do it when Chris Palmer was teaching Carr. And without that kind of organization, nothing your best blocker does really matters.

I think the culture aspect of this is kind of overstated. Tunsil was more of a withdrawn personality and … let’s say he likes to have fun with the media … than somebody not living up to the culture of the building. And as someone who often likes to march to the beat of his own drummer, and someone who also was mostly raised by a single mom, I can find myself empathizing with him in that way. I would probably also be a bit of an outlier on the character standards of Nick Caserio’s set-your-watch culture.

When you negotiate yourself to be the highest-paid tackle in the NFL twice — and fire your agent because you’re so sure you’re negotiating with schmucks who can’t afford to lose you — I think it becomes clear that he both puts the work in and understands how to best exploit that work.

I think he’ll continue to age well. I wouldn’t be concerned about that from the Commanders standpoint at all. Where this trade comes from is the grand game of contracts.

When the Texans selected Blake Fisher in the second round of last year’s draft, they were playing a long-term numbers game. I can both see the logic of what they did here and be frightened by said logic.

I want to be clear that I am frightened by their logic because Nick Caserio is still trying to pick one good offensive lineman in the draft in his Houston tenure. Between Fisher, Juice Scruggs, Jarrett Patterson, Austin Deculus, and Kenyon Green, the Texans have zero good seasons so far. Maybe the new stamp of Nick Caley and Cole Popovich having actual power will change that. I’m reserving judgment, but I have my doubts. It is, I think proven over time, that any one GM will have swings and misses over several draft classes. But, as the Patriots famously struggled to find a good wideout with all their draft capital, I hold a little more tightly to the idea that perhaps there is a blind spot at one position.

The offensive line market is starting to blow up. Aaron Banks, Will Fries, and Dan Moore all got major money. Meanwhile, the Texans looked at another negotiation with one of the league’s best bag-getters that would take him into his mid-30s as much more of a risk than it was the last two times. They saw a future where they locked down Derek Stingley Jr, Will Anderson, Stroud, and (for reasons I am less happy about) Jalen Pitre. And in a land with those contracts upcoming, they decided that Tunsil was expendable.

I think the return is fair if not exciting. You can’t get anybody stoked about draft picks in 2026. Perhaps it enables them to climb the draft board in six weeks for someone they really want — the way Caserio operates I would be surprised if it didn’t end like that.

What it leaves is putting Howard at left tackle (per Aaron Wilson), a position he hasn’t played since 2021, Fisher at right tackle, Patterson and Scruggs at guard, and cheap veteran Laken Tomlinson at left guard. If you told me that nobody on that line was better than average in 2025, I couldn’t react with any amount of surprise.

Laremy Tunsil is great at what he does, but Laremy Tunsil didn’t stop the sacks from happening in 2024. The lesson watching him for six years taught me is: No left tackle can do that.

Even as I say and believe that moving on from Tunsil isn’t such a big deal, I have to acknowledge that other people will believe it is. And that it does matter. Making this move and further weakening an offensive line that already wasn’t a strength has some major downside scenarios. Chief among them is that at the end of the 2025 season, C.J. Stroud looks at what has happened here the last two seasons and is left wondering why he’d want to sign an extension when he gets his ass beat every game.

In a world where offensive line contracts are only going to get more expensive, the Texans are pivoting to being thrifty at the position. They were sixth in offensive line spending in 2024. This year, they will be 13th. And they’ll only be 13th because of the obscene amount of dead money they’re carrying on Tunsil, Kenyon Green, and Shaq Mason. Howard has a $23 million cap figure. Tomlinson is $4.25 million. Everyone else is on a rookie contract.

I don’t think this is an intentional strategy so much as a soft reset on spending on linemen, but it’s very tough to face a reset button just two years into Stroud’s career. Sometimes all that actually winds up meaning is that the team hasn’t drafted a position very well.

Then again, the Bills, Chiefs, and Ravens have all faced their own share of small resets over the past 3-5 years. Buffalo soft resetting on Stefon Diggs sure looks like the right call today, even if it didn’t get them any closer to a championship.

I think the hope is that the Tunsil trade looks a little like that for the Texans in a year.

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