It has been quite the offseason for DeShaun Watson, to say the least. He’s embroiled in serious legal troubles with over 20 women accusing him of sexual misconduct. He began the offseason by requesting a trade from the Texans, and then all the allegations hit. That was several months ago, but we really haven’t heard much about the situation since then. He showed up for Texans training camp, but that was only because not showing up would have earned him massive fines. He still wants out of Houston, but up until now, it looked like it would be almost impossible for Houston to trade him due to the legal issues.

Until now, apparently:

It doesn’t seem like anything is imminent, and earlier today there were some attempts to throw cold water on the trade rumors:

This is an interesting statement from PFF. The initial report from Trapasso was that trade talks were “heating up,” but PFF’s source says “they are not.”

But this would imply that there are still trade talks ongoing between the Eagles and the Texans, right?

All the PFF tweet says is that the trade talks aren’t heating up, not that there are no trade talks at all.

So my takeaway here is that there are in fact discussions happening between the Eagles and Texans, but that those discussions may or may not be “heating up.”

Look, we all know the legal issues are a massive cloud hanging over DeShaun Watson. I’m sure there are more teams than just the Eagles still willing to trade for him, though. It’s just that the Texans aren’t lowering their asking price for him despite it all. The Texans are not desperate to unload him.

The Eagles have trade assets right now. They have two first round picks in the 2022 draft, plus they can send Jalen Hurts to give the Texans a young QB to build around potentially.

However, the fact that the Eagles are trying to trade for Watson tells me they don’t have a lot of confidence in Jalen Hurts, and other teams know this, so that lowers Hurts’ trade value. That’s a whole story unto itself.

Will a deal get done? I don’t know, but my gut says probably. The Texans should want to unload him given that he’s got a lot of uncertainty with his legal issues, plus he simply doesn’t want to be there. The only thing is, the Texans just want to make sure they’re not getting fleeced. I’m sure they’re getting tons of low-ball offers from teams based on the perception that Watson is a “toxic asset.”

If there’s motivation on both sides for a deal, then more often than not, a deal gets done.