Per Pro Football Weekly comes the story of that other guy on the Texans running back depth chart. Not the league’s leading rusher, not the second round rookie who missed all of last season with a broken ankle, and not the veteran back who averaged 6.3 yards per carry last year. No, we’re talking about West Virginia’s own Steve Slaton, who was shoehorned into being a kick returner with disastrous results last season and hasn’t shown much of anything as a running back since injuring his neck in the 2009 season.
Turns out the Texans know he is worthless to them, and they have plans to showcase him in the preseason if there is one:
With a logjam in the backfield, we hear the Texans would love to get Steve Slaton as many carries as possible in the preseason to showcase him for other teams. The club is not likely to cut the former 1,000-yard rusher, but it would entertain trade offers for him.
Listen, there’s not going to be a preseason this year barring a drastic change in the tenor of the labor talks. Steve Slaton has no value to anybody right now. I understand that the Texans want to try to get the best value they can for someone if they get rid of him, but lets not turn this into another Antwaun Molden situation where Houston is essentially playing with a 52-man roster. If there are no offers for Slaton on the table coming out of training camp, the Texans need to cut him. Yes, he had a fabulous season once. That Steve Slaton no longer exists though; the one makes indecisive cuts and has no value to the Texans is the one that currently is on the roster. The Slaton that doesn’t deserve to be there.