{"id":149199,"date":"2025-06-22T05:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T05:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/149199\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T05:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T05:24:14","slug":"projections-for-houston-texans-defense-in-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/149199\/","title":{"rendered":"Projections for Houston Texans’ defense in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are high expectations surrounding the Houston Texans<\/a> heading into the 2025 season, where the defense should be the backbone of the AFC South champions once more.<\/p>\n

After a breakout third season from All-Pro cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., the Texans ensured he became the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL on a three-year, $90 million extension. Houston also added another year to Danielle Hunter’s extension after his first double-digit sack season, keeping him around through the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

ESPN’s Mike Clay\u00a0recently shared his 2025 projections<\/a>, including for the\u00a0Texans’<\/a>\u00a0defensive players. Here’s a look:<\/p>\n

Edge rushersDanielle Hunter: 776 snaps, 52 tackles, 9.8 sacks, 0.0 interceptionWill Anderson Jr.: 723 snaps, 51 tackles, 10.1 sacks, 0.0 interceptionDenico Autry: 372 snaps, 22 tackles, 3.6 sacks, 0.0 interceptionDerek Barnett: 202 snaps, 14 tackles, 1.9 sacks, 0.0 interceptionDarrell Taylor: 149 snaps, 10 tackles, 1.3 sacks, 0.0 interceptionDefensive tacklesTim Settle: 585 snaps, 32 tackles, 2.7 sacksSheldon Rankins: 532 snaps, 37 tackles, 2.1 sacksMario Edwards Jr.: 510 snaps, 32 tackles, 2.6 sacksFolorunso Fatukasi: 245 snaps, 10 tackles, 0.7 sacksTommy Togiai: 128 snaps, 10 tackles, 0.5 sacksKurt Hinish: 21 snaps, 1 tackleLinebackersAzeez Al-Shaair: 1,000 snaps, 137 tackles, 2.0 sacks, 0.9 interceptionsHenry To’oTo’o: 691 snaps, 99 tackles, 1.1 sacks, 0.5 interceptionsE.J. Speed: 478 snaps, 69 tackles, 0.6 sack, 0.2 interceptionsChristian Harris: 74 snaps, 9 tackles, 0.1 sack, 0.1 interceptionsCornerbacksDerek Stingley Jr.:\u00a01,010 snaps, 62 tackles, 0.1 sack, 2.6 interceptionsKamari Lassiter: 1,010 snaps, 76 tackles, 0.3 sacks, 1.8 interceptionsJalen Pitre: 936 snaps, 89 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 1.1 interceptionsJaylin Smith: 87 snaps, 7 tackles, 0.0 sack, 0.1 interceptionsMyles Bryant: 53 snaps, 5 tackles, 0.0 sack, 0.1 interceptionSafetiesC.J. Gardner-Johnson: 957 snaps, 69 tackles, 0.4 sacks, 2.6 interceptionsJimmie Ward: 638 snaps, 66 tackles, 0.3 sacks, 1.5 interceptionsCalen Bullock: 468 snaps, 29 tackles, 0.1 sack, 1.2 interceptionsMJ Stewart: 21 snaps, 2 tackles, 0.0 sack, 0.0 interception<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are high expectations surrounding the Houston Texans heading into the 2025 season, where the defense should be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2056],"tags":[204,80,4955,17051,115,1466,247,265,11715,6047,1068,1085,19,12,388,7,221,253,2368,123,379,1070,248,267,88,6,15,245,537,530,818,1602,1982,327,817,829,9,266,819,1069,222,1980,776],"class_list":{"0":"post-149199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-204","9":"tag-2025-nfl-draft","10":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","11":"tag-17051","12":"tag-afc","13":"tag-afc-south","14":"tag-american","15":"tag-american-football","16":"tag-danielle","17":"tag-danielle-hunter","18":"tag-derek","19":"tag-derek-stingley-jr","20":"tag-draft","21":"tag-espn","22":"tag-espn-inc","23":"tag-football","24":"tag-houston","25":"tag-houston-texans","26":"tag-houstontexans","27":"tag-hunter","28":"tag-inc","29":"tag-jr","30":"tag-national","31":"tag-national-sports","32":"tag-news","33":"tag-nfl","34":"tag-nfl-draft","35":"tag-overall","36":"tag-overall-positive","37":"tag-positive","38":"tag-scores","39":"tag-smg","40":"tag-smg-timely","41":"tag-south","42":"tag-sport","43":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","44":"tag-sports","45":"tag-sports-news","46":"tag-statistics","47":"tag-stingley","48":"tag-texans","49":"tag-timely","50":"tag-u0026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}