Bill O’Brien: We wanted to keep D.J. Reader, couldn’t do it financially

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Texans head coach and General Manager Bill O’Brien said on a recent call with season ticket holders that the team’s decision to trade wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to the Cardinals was made for financial reasons and dollars and cents contributed to another big departure from Houston this offseason.

Defensive tackle D.J. Reader drew a lot of interest once he hit the open market and wound up signing a four-year, $53 million with the Bengals. O’Brien said the team spoke to Reader before he left, but that the Bengals’ offer was too rich for the Texans to match.

“I think we’ve done a great job with that of keeping guys on board,” O’Brien said, via the team’s website. “There are certain guys that we just we just couldn’t do it financially and we would have loved to keep on board. D.J. Reader — We would have loved to keep D.J. Reader. We had good conversations with him and his representatives, but at the end of the day, we couldn’t get that one done. So that’s going to happen every single year.”

The Texans signed defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan to a one-year deal after Reader left for Cincinnati and they’ll be hoping that the big difference in cost isn’t matched by a big difference in performance.