In a recent interview with Sports Radio KILT, Texans offensive right tackle Eric Winston said if the team were to re-sign former starting strong safety Bernard Pollard, then they would have tendered him. However, Winston said the nontender of his good friend is just the nature of the business:
“You know, that’s the unfortunate part of the NFL. No matter if you’re 16-0 or 0-16, you’re going to have a different team every year. There’s going to be different guys, you’re going to have free agency. I think it’s a chance for him to go maybe sign a decent deal with somebody and go get some money. You know, that’s not necessarily a bad thing that we didn’t tender him or we’re not going to re-sign him. And that’s another thing too. He just becomes a free agent. Maybe the team didn’t want to tender him but are interested in doing a deal. I don’t know. I don’t know the aspects of that. Because a lot of people are saying if you don’t tender him that means there’s no way you’re going to re-sign him. Not true. But at the same time, obviously if we were probably going to re-sign him, we probably would have tendered him.”