{"id":868666,"date":"2026-04-17T21:15:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868666\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T21:15:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:15:42","slug":"texans-made-a-massive-nfl-draft-gamble-to-get-will-anderson-jr-and-they-were-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868666\/","title":{"rendered":"Texans made a massive NFL Draft gamble to get Will Anderson Jr., and they were right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latest NFL mock draft<\/a> | Big Boards: Yahoo consensus Top 75<\/a> \u2022 Nate Tice<\/a> \u2022 Charles McDonald<\/a> | Draft guide<\/a><\/p>\n

NFL Draft trade value charts exist for a reason. They\u2019re a good, shorthand guide to inform whether teams are getting equal value in a deal or overpaying for picks.<\/p>\n

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The charts don\u2019t factor in what happens when a player becomes a superstar after they\u2019re drafted.<\/p>\n

By any draft chart calculation, the Houston Texans overpaid for the right to move up and take defensive end Will Anderson Jr. in 2023. They sent the 12th and 33rd picks in 2023, and first- and third-round picks in 2024 to the Arizona Cardinals<\/a> for the third and 105th picks of the 2023 draft. The 2024 picks became Nos. 27 and 90 overall.<\/p>\n

At the time, the trade drew mixed reviews<\/a> for the Texans<\/a> due to the cost. Three years later, as Anderson signed the largest contract in NFL history for a non-quarterback after three years of stellar play, it\u2019s hard to say the Texans overpaid.<\/p>\n

The Texans had conviction on a player and paid a large price to go get him. And they were right.<\/p>\n

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Texans<\/a> were \u2018not worried\u2019 about value chart<\/p>\n

When the NFL Draft<\/a> happens next week and trades are made, value charts will be brought up. The old chart, made famous by former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson (and available on Pro Football Reference<\/a>), had the Cardinals winning that 2023 trade by a significant margin. The total value for the picks the Cardinals got was 2,600 points. The picks the Texans got were worth 2,284. And the gap was only that close because Houston<\/a> was far better than expected in the 2023 season, going 10-7, pushing its draft slot down. The trade could have been much more lopsided on paper if Houston\u2019s record was close to its 3-13-1 record from the previous season.<\/p>\n

There might be a lesson to be learned by looking back at what Texans general manager Nick Caserio said three years ago. The team didn\u2019t care about the charts. It felt strongly about Anderson, and that\u2019s all that mattered.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally the trade in and of itself is just about doing what we felt was best for the team and the organization, and trades are always a product or a function of the player,\u201d Caserio told the media in 2023<\/a>. \u201cJust from our perspective, it\u2019s not about what the points tell you on the chart. If you have conviction about a player and you want a player and you think the trade is the right thing for you to do, then you go ahead and do it, which is what we did.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re certainly not worried about what the points are and what the trade chart says. I mean, it doesn\u2019t really mean anything. So the trade was really driven more by, this is a player we thought would bring a lot of value to our team. So that\u2019s why we went ahead and did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not every trade will work out as well as Houston\u2019s deal for Anderson. Drafting is an inexact science and not every exciting prospect turns out to be one of the best defensive players in football, as Anderson has.<\/p>\n

Maybe there\u2019s something to be said about trusting your evaluation and ignoring conventional wisdom.<\/p>\n

\"WillWill Anderson Jr.<\/a> of the Houston Texans was part of a huge 2023 NFL Draft trade. (Photo by Michael Owens\/Getty Images) (Michael Owens via Getty Images)Will Anderson Jr. is a bona fide star<\/p>\n

While Anderson\u2019s $50 million per year extension is a stunning jump from Myles Garrett<\/a>\u2019s previous record of $40 million per season for non-quarterbacks. Anderson has earned the deal.<\/p>\n

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He won NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, then in Year 2 he had 11 sacks and 12 last season. Anderson was first-team All-Pro last season. He finished second in the NFL Defensive Player of the Year voting behind Garrett. There\u2019s no question he\u2019s on an elite tier of pass rushers. The Texans paid a lot on the extension but they\u2019re getting a spectacular player at a high-value position. It\u2019s too early to put Anderson in a Hall of Fame discussion, but he\u2019s laying the foundation of that type of career. He has been that good.<\/p>\n

In next week\u2019s draft, there will be trades. Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said this week that he expects a lot of them<\/a> because there aren\u2019t many elite prospects and the grades on many of the top prospects could be similar between teams. And if those trades go down, the value difference will be debated.<\/p>\n

It will be worth noting that a team could supposedly overpay and get it right if the player ends up being a star. Overpaying worked out pretty well for the Texans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Latest NFL mock draft | Big Boards: Yahoo consensus Top 75 \u2022 Nate Tice \u2022 Charles McDonald |…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[6861,390,7,221,253,2368,1304,6,15,222,7577,6051],"class_list":{"0":"post-868666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-anderson","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-houstontexans","14":"tag-myles-garrett","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-nfl-draft","17":"tag-texans","18":"tag-the-texans","19":"tag-will-anderson-jr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116422124351910485","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868666","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=868666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}