The Real Story Behind Texans Cornerback Phillip Buchanon's Release

Today, the Texans released Phillip Buchanon. They didn't manage to get anything for someone that they acquired from the Raiders last year in exchange for the Texans' 2006 second and third round draft choices.

The traditional media story on this can be found here: Buchanon played poorly last season, lost his starting job, got injured for the rest of 2005. In 2006, he struggled with various injuries in camp, and never regained his starting job, despite wholesale injuries to various Texans cornerbacks and thinnish talent.

The complete story is that the Raiders got one over on Charlie Casserly. The Raiders were unhappy with Buchanon's inability to cover and tackle--two things you kinda want to see in your cornerback. When they were trying to trade him to cornerback needy teams, there were rumors that the Redskins were going to get him. Casserly moved quickly to make the trade with the Raiders (maybe partially to spite the Skins?)

Last year, as the Texans imploded, Bob McNair unprecedentedly dumped Casserly in the grease in the Houston Chronicle, stating that the team didn't do its homework before making this trade. The article said that the Texans had only watched four of Buchanon's Raider games before doing the deal with them. McNair usually goes out of his way to keep football operations things quiet to the media, and such an article hasn't been seen before or since.

Casserly denied that report on sportstalk radio, claiming that the Texans thought that they were getting a light hitting cover corner that they believed they could coach up. In the games he played in 2005, Buchanon became notorious with Texans fans for ole-ing various running backs, so much so that in 2006, Buchanon sought out Gary Kubiak to talk to him about it before the new season.

So there goes another of Casserly's ~~players~~ mistakes. Seems like it was a surprise to the team, at least to cornerback Dunta Robinson who publicly wondered why the Texans couldn't get something for him.

Cornerback Demarcus Faggins, who has been out with a fractured foot, is expected to get some playing time on Sunday in the game against the Jaguars.