Laremy Tunsil's time with the Houston Texans appeared to be coming to a close, but he's staying with the team after all. According to Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network, the Texans restructured Tunsil's contract Tuesday converting the majority of his $17.85 million salary into a signing bonus and dropping his 2022 salary cap hit from $26.1 million to $17.7 million.
Tunsil, 27, seemingly confirmed the news on Twitter with a clip from The Wolf of Wall Street (NSFW language).
— Laremy Tunsil (@KingTunsil78) March 15, 2022
Houston acquired Tunsil just before the start of the 2019 season in a blockbuster trade that also sent wide receiver Kenny Stills to the Texans and two first-round picks, among other compensation, to the Miami Dolphins.
Tunsil earned Pro Bowl nods in his first two seasons with the Texans, but missed the last 12 games of the 2021 season due to a thumb injury that was originally expected to keep him out only four weeks. After the season, Texans general manager Nick Caserio was hesitant to commit to the idea of bringing back Tunsil.
"We’re kind of going through the whole team-building process as we speak," Caserio said at the NFL Combine earlier this month, via SportsTalk 790AM. "So, we’ve got a lot of players that are under contract, so we’ll be pretty busy here the next couple of weeks. But you know, Laremy’s under contract. He’s been a good player for us, so we’ll kind of see how it all goes.”
According to Wilson, multiple teams made "unprompted, exploratory calls" about trading for Tunsil before the team restructured his deal Tuesday.
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