To understand Will Anderson Jr.'s fit with the Texans, start with fish, familiy and loyalty
The Texans had to reserve multiple rows in their team auditorium to account for Anderson’s family when he was formally introduced the day after the franchise traded up from No. 12 to select him. One seat was missing.
Betty died during Anderson’s freshman year at Alabama, a season, like his arrival in Houston, that Little Will viewed through her memory. “I don’t take this for granted,” Anderson said. “ showed me how much they actually wanted me here. That’s all I wanted is to go somewhere where I felt wanted, where I felt like it was family.” Will Anderson Jr. is a former Alabama linebacker like Texans coach DeMeco Ryans and shares a similar mindset.The Texans’ largest draft-day trade in history made it clear Will Anderson Jr. is where he’s wanted. His development from standing outside linebacker to hand-in-the-ground defensive end and subsequent production will determine if. DeMeco Ryans certainly needed to upgrade a Texans defense that pressured quarterbacks at the league’s 13th-lowest rate last season. He’d constructed a top-rated 49ers defense with All-Pro edge rusher Nick Bosa careening into opposing backfields, and Ryans made improving the defensive front a top priority when the Texans named him their fourth head coach in four seasons. But is Anderson a schematic fit? Ryans admitted Anderson must learn new techniques but insisted “it’s not a big-time position change.” Alabama coach Nick Saban indeed sometimes deployed Anderson as a three-point stance lineman, but he most often unleashed the Terminator from an array of standing positionings as a hybrid “Jack” linebacker. At 6-3, 253 pounds, Anderson is leaner than typical defensive ends. But his speed and quickness draw a considerable comparison to Chargers edge rusher Khalil Mack, who provided an interesting precedent having entered the NFL with an eerily similar 6-3, 251-pound frame. Mack, an outside linebacker at Buffalo, was drafted No. 5 overall by the Raiders in 2014, and he made the same positional transition when former coach Jack Del Rio was hired in 2015. Jethro Franklin, Mack’s position coach, said they tried “not to make it overly complicated.” It wasn’t simple by any means. But they began with a small scope of tedious techniques that, once mastered, led into understanding the whole.Where is your weight distributed? Which hand is down? Which foot is back? Each combination gave Mack a different angle, a different leverage point, a different purpose. Of course, a defensive end’s vision is from a lower viewpoint, and, depending on what kind of blocks one attacks, that could determine which foot it is up, which is back, how will the defender position himself to see the play progress? Mack was a two-time All-Pro in Oakland and recorded 36½ sacks and 52 tackles for loss in three seasons under Del Rio. Franklin credited then-Raiders defensive coordinator Ken Norton for not being overly concerned with Mack’s ability to drop back in coverage than expanding his strengths for rushing into opposing backfields. Sometimes they did have defensive ends drop back in coverage. They jokingly called those “relief breaks,” breathers after slugging it out with 6-6, 320-pound offensive tackles all day. But they weren’t the priority of the scheme. “You’ve got to put time into both as a coach,” said Franklin, now the defensive line coach and run game coordinator at Fresno State. “But at the end of the day, we know he’s going to get his numbers by getting after the quarterback and getting sacks and creating tackles for loss and causing fumbles.” Such are Ryans’ intentions for Anderson. He must become Houston’s biggest backfield threat, the kind of game-wrecker Franklin knows can help field winners. Take Oakland’s 2016 season. Take
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