{"id":760469,"date":"2026-02-18T14:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/760469\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T14:32:14","slug":"texans-urged-to-cut-loose-2nd-round-pick-before-contract-is-done-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/760469\/","title":{"rendered":"Texans urged to cut loose 2nd-round pick before contract is done"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texans urged to cut loose 2nd-round pick before contract is done<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Houston Texans<\/a> have reached a bit of a plateau.<\/p>\n

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Can they go deeper into the playoffs with their current roster construction? The defense sure seems capable, and the offense has a lot of individual talents.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’ll just require a few subtle moves here and there to make all the difference.<\/p>\n

One of those moves, according to ESPN’s Aaron Schatz<\/a>, might be to cut loose Juice Scruggs.<\/p>\n

Scruggs has a year remaining on his rookie contract, but the former second-round pick has fallen off substantially in his time in Houston.<\/p>\n

“Scruggs was a second-round pick in the 2023 draft but missed the first 10 games of his rookie season with a\u00a0hamstring injury,” Schatz writes. “He has been in and out of the lineup ever since — and has yet to reach his potential. Scruggs started most of the 2024 campaign but ranked 32nd out of 33 qualifying players for pass block win rate as a center (89.8%). His 64.3% run block win rate also was poor.”<\/p>\n

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MORE:\u00a0The Packers are facing a bit of a ripoff with Malik Willis<\/a><\/p>\n

That poor play referenced there led to very little action for Scruggs in 2025.<\/p>\n

“Last season, Scruggs had only one start and mostly appeared on special teams; he was a healthy scratch in one of Houston’s two playoff games,” Schatz writes. “Perhaps in the final year of his rookie contract another team could figure out the skills that made him a high draft pick to begin with.”<\/p>\n

The premise of Schatz’s article was to identify players who need a change of scenery, so he’s not necessarily saying that it’s in the Texans’ best interests to get rid of Scruggs.<\/p>\n

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Although given the role Scruggs had in 2025, maybe it is worth Houston moving on from him now, giving his work to a different player, and potentially extracting a small bit of cap savings or an asset in return.<\/p>\n

Not every draft pick pans out, and at least in Houston, that appears to be the case for Scruggs.<\/p>\n

More NFL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texans urged to cut loose 2nd-round pick before contract is done originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[13351,7494,7,221,253,2368,7463,4097,6,195,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-760469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-aaron-schatz","9":"tag-draft-pick","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-houstontexans","14":"tag-juice-scruggs","15":"tag-malik-willis","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-rookie-contract","18":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}