HOUSTON -- Last week Houston Texans general manager Rick Smith boasted proudly about vice president of football administration Chris Olsen and how well he managed the team's salary cap.

"I don’t know that any player is prohibitive," Smith said. "We try to write our contracts in such a way that when we get to the end of contracts, we don’t necessarily have to move players."

Thursday's flurry of activity, in which Arian Foster, Garrett Graham and Rahim Moore were released, bore that out.

During the past few years, the Texans have avoided situations where they might need to ask players to take pay cuts. They offered safety Danieal Manning a pay cut during the offseason before the 2014 season, but Manning declined. That was the only marquee player who was offered a pay cut before being pushed out.

Receiver Andre Johnson simply was told he would get 40 catches in 2015, and then he asked for his own release. Tight end Owen Daniels said he would take a pay cut but was simply released instead. Center Chris Myers wasn't offered a pay cut before he was released last spring, and neither was Foster, the best running back in franchise history.

Pay cuts just aren't how the Texans like to do business.

Players can grow concerned when a team becomes known for restructuring deals at the end, even with guys who have played up to their contracts. Morale can be affected if a team relies too heavily on pay cuts.

Having too many contracts that depend on pay cuts as they end can cause salary cap problems for teams. The Texans instead have worked to make sure they don't need pay cuts if a player deserves his salary. If he can't contribute, they just cut ties.

It's a business philosophy that has its positives and negatives. On one hand, not needing to make decisions based on financial constraints is a very good thing. It allows the team more freedom to operate as it wishes and signals to players that they won't be asked to give back money at the end of their deals.

On the other hand, some players who aren't worth an exorbitant salary are worth keeping nonetheless. Take Daniels, for example. Daniels was instrumental in the Denver Broncos' Super Bowl run. The Texans saved $4.5 million in salary cap space by releasing him, but have struggled to find productive tight ends since then. They chose Graham over Daniels, giving him a three-year deal worth $11.25 million to be their starter before the 2014 season. Instead, Graham was inactive for half the 2015 season and was released Thursday along with Foster.

The bottom line is, the Texans try to avoid pay cuts when they can. With most of the marquee players released lately, they've done just that.