HOUSTON – The Houston Texans are signing veteran tight end Dalton Schultz to a three-year, $36 million contract that includes $23.5 million fully guaranteed, per a league source.
Schultz and the Texans wanted to keep working together and sources emphasized at the NFL scouting combine as a scenario expected to unfold.
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“Schultz will be back with the Texans,” a league source predicted Sunday.
Now, the Texans have back a proven receiving option for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year quarterback C.J. Stroud after they built chemistry last season.
“Run it back,” Schultz wrote later on social media.
The Texans haven’t used the franchise tag during general manager Nick Caserio’s tenure and avoided having to do so with this deal.
Schultz, 27, is a reliable downfield target for Stroud. He caught 59 passes for 635 yards and five touchdowns on 88 targets last season after leaving the Dallas Cowboys to sign a one-year deal with the Texans last year.
Schultz caught 10 passes for 130 yards and a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For his career, he has 270 career passes for 2,757 yards and 22 touchdowns.
“Yeah, Dalton did a really nice job for us in the passing game on those two-minute drives where we were able to win a few games,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said at the NFL scouting combine. “Dalton really showed up, in a situational football, third-down, he showed up making big catches for us. We’ll see what happens with Dalton in free agency, but I’m very proud of what he did for us last year.”
The Cowboys previously retained Schultz with the franchise tag in 2022 before allowing him to test the free agent market last year.
The Texans signed Schultz to a one-year, $6.25 million deal last season. And they kept him at an average of $12 million annually, a significant raise.
“It has to be a part of your calculus, it’s really a fixed number,” Caserio said at the NFL scouting combine. “Anytime you assign a tag to a player, it’s essentially, you’re committed to that value. Now, it doesn’t mean you can’t work out a long-term contract extension with that player, but it’s sort of a fixed number. It’s almost a starting point in a negotiation.
“So, you have to figure out is that valuable, does that make sense, or let the player get to the open market, let the market dictate what the value is. Honestly, it’s a little cat-and-mouse game, so you just try to take the information in, have a general understanding of the market and try to make a good decision.”
Ultimately, the best decision was to sign Schultz to a new contract and continue the success they started building last season for the NFL’s seventh-ranked passing offense.
Aaron Wilson is a Texans and NFL reporter for KPRC 2 and click2houston.com