{"id":38338,"date":"2025-05-10T06:13:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T06:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/38338\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T06:13:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T06:13:23","slug":"qb-graham-mertz-signs-deal-nfl-with-houston-texans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/38338\/","title":{"rendered":"QB Graham Mertz signs deal NFL with Houston Texans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Florida football starting quarterback Graham Mertz is officially a member of the National Football League after signing a four-year, $4.9 million contract with the <a href=\"https:\/\/texanswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Texans<\/a>, who selected him in the sixth round with the No. 197 overall pick of the 2025 NFL draft.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-3-inch, 216-pound signal caller started his collegiate career with the <a href=\"https:\/\/badgerswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wisconsin Badgers<\/a>, playing four seasons under center in Madison \u2014 including his 2019 redshirt freshman season \u2014 before transferring to Gainesville for the final two years of eligibility. Mertz started every regular-season game during his final three years with Wisconsin, passing at a 59.1% clip for 5,332 yards and 38 touchdowns against 26 interceptions from 2020-2022.<\/p>\n<p>After joining the Orange and Blue, the native of Overland Park, Kansas, upped his game by leading the SEC in passing percentage at 72.9% while throwing for 2,903 yards and 20 touchdowns while tossing just three picks. However, his stint with the Gators was marred by injuries \u2014 first against the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/ncaaf\/teams\/missouri-tigers\/3428\/\" data-autotag=\"d6522db1-627b-4f61-a464-251646bc2d96\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Missouri Tigers<\/a> in 2023 that forced him to miss the rivalry matchup with the <a href=\"https:\/\/fsuwire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Florida State Seminoles<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Then in 2024, Mertz made it through just five games before the injury bug struck again, ending his season at the <a href=\"https:\/\/volswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tennessee Volunteers<\/a>. However, that may have been a blessing in disguise, as it opened the door for DJ Lagway to assume his inevitable position as the program&#8217;s star quarterback.<\/p>\n<p>Mertz finished his collegiate career with a 64.7% passing percentage along with 9,099 yards through the air and 64 scores while tossing 31 interceptions.<\/p>\n<p>Follow us\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GatorsWire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@GatorsWire<\/a>\u00a0on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/gatorswire.bsky.social\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bluesky<\/a>, and like our page on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GatorsWire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0to follow ongoing coverage of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/ncaaf\/teams\/florida-gators\/3472\/\" data-autotag=\"5f17983d-3ab8-4b35-9954-23714ad248dd\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Florida Gators<\/a> news, notes and opinions.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Florida football starting quarterback Graham Mertz is officially a member of the National Football League after signing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[247,265,318,339,380,1301,2391,7,2388,221,253,2368,1684,6186,248,267,88,6,245,537,530,9,266,222,790],"class_list":{"0":"post-38338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-college","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-florida-gators","14":"tag-florida-gators-football","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-gators","17":"tag-houston","18":"tag-houston-texans","19":"tag-houstontexans","20":"tag-missouri","21":"tag-missouri-tigers-football","22":"tag-national","23":"tag-national-sports","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-nfl","26":"tag-overall","27":"tag-overall-positive","28":"tag-positive","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-sports-news","31":"tag-texans","32":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114482066641545164","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38338","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=38338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}