{"id":671373,"date":"2026-01-12T12:28:23","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T12:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/671373\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T12:28:23","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T12:28:23","slug":"texans-will-anderson-jr-expecting-heavyweight-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/671373\/","title":{"rendered":"Texans\u2019 Will Anderson Jr. expecting \u2018heavyweight matchup\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a three-season stretch in which Houston totaled 11 victories, the Texans hired DeMeco Ryans<\/a> as head coach and drafted quarterback C.J. Stroud and defensive end Will Anderson Jr. <\/a>second and third, respectively, in the 2023 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n

The Texans have won a playoff game in both of the previous seasons with that trio and have reached a third consecutive postseason for the first time in franchise history.<\/p>\n

Houston and the Pittsburgh Steelers will conclude the NFL\u2019s Wild-Card Weekend when they square off at 7:15 CST Monday at Acriscure Stadium in Pittsburgh. ABC and ESPN will televise the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re four games away from being world champions,\u201d Anderson said<\/a>. \u201cWhatever you have to sacrifice, whatever you have to give up, like, don\u2019t look too far ahead, but really be in the moment. But really look what we\u2019re striving for. Look what we\u2019re going towards. And I think everybody\u2019s been doing a really good job with that. Man, like, we\u2019re a couple of games away from being exactly where we want to be at.\u201d<\/p>\n

FOR MORE OF AL.COM\u2019S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE<\/a><\/p>\n

Early in the 2025 season, the Texans\u2019 playoff chances appeared to be dwindling away before Houston played most of November without Stroud.<\/p>\n

The Texans became the second team this century<\/a> to reach the playoffs after losing their first three games in a season. Davis Mills stepped in for Stroud, and Houston won all three of his starts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you look at the beginning of our season to now, and we\u2019re just being built on perseverance, man,\u201d Anderson said<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve been built on toughness, built on surviving, built on getting through it, out the mud and stuff like that. So, like, I\u2019m really proud of this team and where we\u2019ve come. I can\u2019t wait till we go let loose on Monday and just play our brand of ball and do it to the best of our ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson thinks the Texans and Steelers have similar makeups. Houston is the AFC\u2019s No. 5 seed after posting a 12-5 record in the regular season and earning a wild-card spot with the conference\u2019s No. 1 defense. Pittsburgh is the No. 4 seed after winning the AFC North by beating the Baltimore Ravens 26-24 in the final game on the NFL\u2019s regular-season schedule to finish 10-7.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a heavyweight matchup,\u201d Anderson said<\/a>, \u201cand it\u2019s going to come down to the trenches and everybody being physical. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what we tried to put on tape all year — that we\u2019re a smashmouth football team. We\u2019re a physical, violent team. And so to go against another team like that is going to be a great challenge for us. Man, it\u2019s the league. Everybody\u2019s good. Everybody\u2019s tough. Everybody\u2019s built right, man. So it\u2019s going to be a really great challenge for us that we\u2019re all excited for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texans totaled 47 sacks during the regular season with defensive end Danielle Hunter getting 15 and Anderson contributing 12. They\u2019ll take aim at four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers. Although 42 years old, Rodgers was one of the harder quarterbacks to sack this season with 29.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very eager, man,\u201d Anderson said<\/a>. \u201cBut it\u2019s not just about the two guys on the edge. I think it\u2019s us as a collective — the inside guys working together, us working together, everybody rushing together to have fun, man. And they\u2019re going to do a lot of stuff with chips and stuff like that, and I think we have a really great game plan for that. But it\u2019s going to be everybody rushing together doing the same thing that we\u2019ve been doing all year, man. And really just getting after him.\u201d<\/p>\n

A two-time unanimous All-American selection and back-to-back winner of the SEC Defensive Player of the Year Award and Bronko Nagurski Trophy at Alabama<\/a>, Anderson was the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2023. He\u2019ll take the field for the first time as a first-team All-Pro on Monday night after making The Associated Press\u2019 annual NFL all-star team<\/a> announced on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means a lot,\u201d Anderson said<\/a>. \u201cSuch a blessing. But, man, I just got to give credit to my guys, man. I wouldn\u2019t even be right here if it wasn\u2019t for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh has lost its six playoff games since an 18-16 second-round victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Jan. 15, 2017. But the Steelers will carry a winning streak into their meeting with the Texans. Pittsburgh has won 23 consecutive Monday night home games <\/a>since a 23-20 setback against the New York Giants on Oct. 14, 1991.<\/p>\n

The winner of Monday night\u2019s game will visit the New England Patriots in a Divisional Weekend game on Sunday. The Patriots advanced by beating the Los Angeles Chargers 16-3<\/a> on Sunday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a three-season stretch in which Houston totaled 11 victories, the Texans hired DeMeco Ryans as head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[97727,7,3185,221,253,2368,6,31185,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-671373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-20260104_fb_nfl_ind_hou_wk18_mlb_6019","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-helmet-off","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-houstontexans","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-nflraw25","16":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115882131744429435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671373","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=671373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}