Houston Texans DE Will Anderson Shooting For A Monster Season

Houston Texans DE Will Anderson Shooting For A Monster Season

one minute late uh 31 minutes if you count that I’m supposed to come on at 1 pm but one minute late from the uh the the booted Back Time Seth coming in hot to save the midday pumped for more SP every time we can get it lfg g to pretend I don’t know what that what that curse word acronym means uh Will Anderson was on the rich E in show and it was a it was a fun very fun interview because Rich got will while will was at his niece’s birthday party I can only imagine that will Anderson is probably the best uncle who ever lived like he’s got the buck and Bronco he’s got the claw down pat I would love to have Will Anderson as a as an uncle the first question well the first question I’m gonna play I’m gonna play about five or six clips from this interview with Rich Eisen uh where just simply what were his goals for the off season I haven’t written down my goals yet I kind of do it like right before training camp starts but um my goal in just one word is just to wre Havoc this year that’s it like that’s my that’s always like if I had to tell anybody my goal like that’s it like I don’t get into like my specific goals but that’s just my one like word to sum up all my goals good strategy not telling people your specific goals because then they becom they become annoying uh bench marks for us scumbags in the media to follow along with uh so that’s a good choice as far as what he publicly divulges or not I think as far as specific goals when it comes to Sachs or anything like that I get I get nervous as you guys know when we receivers start talking about their yardage goals I just get nervous because football is the ultimate team sport in terms of total numbers of guys on the roster that play on any given day and there’s so many other factors that go into whether you have a 20 sack season or not that sometimes if you get too fixated on a specific number that’s when whether it’s conscious or not you might have a tendency to forget your run responsibilities or what have you I do like uh production goals like there’s a a produ ratio one of my defensive line coaches Todd Grantham used to have production ratio which is like total number of sacks tackles assists quarterback pressures all those things divided by the number of plays you have because then it’s just like all right whether it’s a run or a pass or anything else I’m just gonna bust my ass and get around the ball as often as possible which we know that will is going to do and so uh I like that he doesn’t necessarily want to State a specific number Rich Eisen good interview the good interviewer that he is in his very lowkey way pressed he pressed for more he pressed for details but you will at some point write down a number on a piece of paper for saxs will do yes sir okay will you at least tell me what it was for last year you got up for last year last year was like seven to 10 like I just want to get like somewhere right there um but like next year I really want to get double digit saxs okay so that’s a a vager goal and uh it’s interesting there’s there’s historical data that supports his goal right there which is it I I kind of was freaked out by how accurate I was this morning when I just threw it out there Houston stressing makes a good point that sacks are kind of random and not necessarily indicative of good play Clowny is someone who’s produced at a good level but didn’t have sacks right um I okay it’s a very nuanced thing and we could spend a half hour doing this the best pass rushers in the league typically get double digit sacks pretty consistently so in any given year it’s not the best gauge you could have the best year ever as a pass rusher and only end up with 15 sacks instead of 22 or something like that so yeah there there’s a Randomness to it but will addresses some of the the nuances in another clip that’s coming up soon the thing that I found really interesting was I threw this out here this morning to Sean Pendergast was that you see this a lot with sack leaders guys that become prodigious sack producers that in their rookie year it’s rare that they have double digit sacks but I was freakishly correct I went through the guys who have had the most sacks in the last five years miles Garrett seven sacks in his first year 15 in his second TJ watt had seven sacks his rookie year Nick Bosa had nine uh denil Hunter had six Trey Hendrickson had six and a half in his first three seasons uh the The Edge rushers Hassan reck had seven in his first three seasons he’s a different story KH Mack had four in his first season followed it up with 15 JJ Watt famously had five and a half sacks in his first season he’s not in the last five years obviously but um and then 20 and a half in his second season so the and a lot of those guys you know ended up with 12 or 13 Max Crosby was the one exception Max Crosby had 10 sacks in his rookie season seven in his second season he regressed a little bit so uh like I I think that’s that’s the appropriate tack to take is all right look that was a good number that will put up last year but he’s gota he’s got to build on that he’s got to produce more he’s he talks about it a lot uh the next question Rich asked was what has he learned from his rookie year or what did he learn his rookie year and sometimes like when I watch film I just be like bro what what are you what were you even thinking like what are you even doing right here and it’s just been a great learning you know a learning um experience for me and this whole offseason um all the things that I seen in my tape talk with my coaches and everything like that those are the things I’ve been working on finishing on a quarterback and a lot of time just taking the edge instead of just like I would just stop at the top of my rush and not get extension at the top of my rush so those are like some of the things that I’ve been like heavily working on this off season and just working on my steps to my pass rush so those are some things like I was just watching last I was like bro like all you have to do is turn the corner right here and just reach and you probably would have got a sack so just those are the things to f- tune my game yeah and I think Will’s excitability sometimes can work against him because you get sack Fever The Closer you get to the quarterback and there were a lot of times last year where you would see he would get within three yards and he just turned it into a bull rush no matter where he was and whether he had an edge or not he would just try to bulldoze his way through an offensive tackle and that’s what that’s what an offensive tackle wants especially if he knows that he’s gonna get that like laramy tonsil will give give give as long as he knows that he’s got a quarterback with some Poise behind him and in the NFL like if if the guys not getting to you and he’s not getting a hand on the ball that’s a clean pocket it can be a tightly compressed pocket but it’s clean as long as nobody actually has a chance to get to you and and will has talked about this multiple times but I thought a couple good plays from last year just to look at quickly were this is these are both sacks that he got and this is from Midway through the season the Broncos game and you can see here he’s actually doing a lot of what we talked about like right there you’re kind of at a stalemate Russell Wilson helps out here by being short because Russell instead of being able to step up or anything Russell Wilson steps back and will sees like oh I got a separate here and he does a good job of it he’s just got to do that more willingly and instinctively on his own which is all that stuff that he’s working out working on this year you saw like right here it’s a good image of it just driving driving driving like he could have hit that move to separate One Step earlier he can Club forward through there but he does a great job of it he just had to learn how to do it reflexively and instinctively you saw later in the season he was just hitting moves like boom working smarter not harder and it’s very good I’ve used that for a thumbnail right there very good shot will thank you thank you it’s important that we keep the thumbnails going the uh the other part related to Will Anderson specifically was he was asked about the dynamic of playing opposite of denil Hunter the side I mean that’s a double dig stat guy every year so te are just gon like shoot we gotta double this guy so I don’t know about this guy so it’s gonna be fun I think we’re gonna cause a lot of havoc and you know disrupt a lot of stuff so I’m excited to go to war with him yeah so the denal hunter part of it I mean it’s it’s like this is not Advanced X’s and O’s right you just you got a guy on the other side and teams got to figure out the two big things okay if you’re going to slide your offensive line towards the dominant pass rusher that leaves the other guy one-on-one with an offensive tackle and it’s all about getting one-on ones in the NFL or they gota they got to keep a tight end and a running back into block and then the quarterbacks got fewer receiving options the interesting part with denil Hunter was that last year especially as great a year as he had he was also on a defense that blitzed more than anybody else in the league Brian flores’s offense was hyper aggressive when it came to sending extra pass rushers that created a couple things one lots of one-on-ones for denal Hunter and two like lots of flush quarterback opportunities when you’re throwing a hand grenade in the backfield with a Blitzer quarterback flushes denil Hunter is very good at those things will was talking about separating getting space and then cleaning up some of those sacks and I think this year the one-on ones have to come from that Dynamic of Will Anderson on the opposite side guys on the inside providing push I think I wouldn’t put a number on denil sack number I wouldn’t put a number on will Anderson’s sack number I do think what was the Wade Phillips used to talk about just if you have two guys that are double digit sacks on opposite ends like just the fact that you got those two guys that are menacing presences they can go a long long way best example ever was Bryce pop got a defensive MVP one year basically because he was playing opposite of Bruce Smith like Bruce Smith was the focal point of every offense and then rice was a really good player but like if he weren’t playing opposite of Bruce Smith he wasn’t going to get as many sacks as he did that year to get the defensive player of the year so either of those guys and it might be as Houston stressen was talking about earlier it could just be the luck of the draw which one of those guys ends up with more sacks this year the key thing is that as a unit those two opposite each other are going to create opportunities a for themselves but B for the defensive tackles anybody else like it they they could really Feast this year it could be really really fun they moved on to some other stuff uh including CJ stoud and will talked for a little while about CJ Stout as a leader and when he knew that CJ was something special but this was the particular part of it that caught my attention watching him throughout the building man I knew he had that it factor to him he was showing up every day locked in uh connecting with guys I think that’s the biggest thing when you know a GU is g to be really good is how they connect with their teammates and the team just L on to him man because he was so personable and then he was just so competitive on the field and he would get like angry at St like he didn’t do something right like he would come back and fix it and coach would like show highlights of like when he did it wrong and then he would come back and show another highlight when CJ did it right and CJ just kept building and building off of that so I’m taking this class on this uh this app it’s imprint app I think I’m still on my free trial and so I’m not advertising them or anything but it it’s cool because I’m taking a course basically you do these courses and it does little quizzes along the way as you’re reading uh like like a condensed textbook version of a topic so I’m taking this thing on interpersonal Dynamics and there’s a lot in here about leadership and various things but it just it really like one of the recurring things that keeps coming on is like the importance of trust in relationships and how hard it is to have hard conversations if you don’t build build trust beforehand so whether you’re a leader in a company or a leader on a sports team or just your relationship with your wife there’s got to be that trust there and a lot of that starts with like the very thing that CJ does which is getting to know people on a more personal level you start off on a superficial level you move to a more personal level level and and CJ’s talked about that a lot in forming a relationship with guys him inviting guys over for dinner from every different position group throughout the year and and it’s a lot easier to it’s a lot easier to be a Taskmaster when the person that you’re correcting or that you’re you know maybe get saying something bluntly to In the Heat of the Moment understands or or has a connection with you already so like that’s a I mean you see so many young athletes think that they’re they’re the quarterback that means I’m the leader and what I say goes yeah in a perfect world it would be just like you’re in the Marines or something but it ain’t the Marines right you’ve got to establish that relationship first I remember talking to I did a a Texas Children’s Hospital event with pton and Eli Manning so I got to interview those two guys up on a stage and pton was talking about when he went to Denver how despite anything else he had done in his career already he wanted to really prove it to those guys in Denver that that he should be the leader and that he wasn’t just going to go right in and start barking orders immediately and you know with a big swing in I’m pton Manning Donger and and and think that guys would respect that so that he went in slowly proved that he could I mean at that point proved that he could still play which was very much in doubt remember he was throwing Ducks up there he was barely throwing it all in the summer so the that part A establishing that personal relationship but then B I think the accountability and the trust trust that this is a guy that’s hard on himself and fix hard on himself in a good way but fixes things and that that builds a lot of faith when you I mean I’ve been on teams where you had to play a Young quarterback and the guy keeps going out and making the same boneheaded mistakes week after week and you really just start wondering like what the hell is this guy doing you know like what what is he even doing like literally what is he doing and why is he the first guy out of the building after practice is over and why is he showing up in the building 10 minutes before the meetings start I’ll leave it to all of you to speculate to which young quarterbacks those might be but it’s it it degrades trust or just keeps it from ever flowering to begin with and CJ’s the opposite of that so I mean you can you can practice doing your speeches and you know think you want to be a motivational leader and all that it doesn’t it’s just worthless if you don’t establish that trust so CJ very much gets that the uh last clip we’ll play was and then I’ll do some comments here was on what he learned from his playoff experience yeah man uh my honest answer it’s just experience man and being healthy and making sure that we’re more detailed than ever um to me those games really count a lot uh they mean a lot more so really just making sure that everybody’s healthy having the experience just being detailed on your job and making sure that you know we cutting out all the mistakes and making as few mistakes as possible yeah and uh that’s the the phrase that’s true that nobody wants to hear but is it’s just so true Dom cavers used to say this but I think I think to an excessive degree but he would say most teams are lost most games are lost than they are one in the NFL and that it’s typically the team that makes the fewest mistakes now it’s you know that that’s Nuance too because if you go out there with the simplest game plan ever with the goal of just not making mistakes you’re going to get eviscerated by a good coordinator on the other side but they’re they’re always trying to find that balance ing act or there it’s always a balancing act with coordinators how complex can we get but where guys are still playing clean and fast and when you get to the playoffs I mean we’ve seen this with the Astros one of the things and one of the reasons that the Astros were able to make it to the ALCS last year despite being a 500 team down the stretch and and basically trying to give away the season at the end of the year is that those guys get into the playoffs and they just have so much experience that all those those little moments where other guys are just tightening up and either trying too hard or trying to do too much or just nervous and choking themselves the Astros don’t do that as often so they just smother teams in the playoffs over the course of a five or seven game series and likewise I mean I’ve been on I’ve been on football teams where we were like back in 99 we were 14-2 in Jacksonville but that was Coughlin 1.0 before we became the kind old grandfather in in New York with the Giants and when we were wound tight and guys made really dumb errors in the playoffs that just that we weren’t going to win because we just we folded we we folded in various playoff games I don’t worry about that with Deo I think that demo is the epitome of a guy that doesn’t add anything any stress to your plate he if anything he said he it’s his job to take stress off of the shoulders of guy young guys especially so as they hopefully get more playoff experience I don’t think that’s going to be a problem at all I think the Texans will play free and loose in the playoffs and hopefully if they could just if they could just block maab for instance that would be nice that that’s a that’s a whole mindset or not let’s have some guys in there that can block maab or quinnon Williams or somewhere on the inside see Lori live made it again uh before I forget thanks for the video on the nickel coverage oh yeah uh I’m going to try to start doing especially it’s so dead right now thank you thank you Rich Eisen for giving me something to talk about uh but the uh the NL like kind of oneone educational stuff H there’s a lot of questions out there that people Google because they’re embarrassed to ask their their husband or their wife or whomever else I’m gonna start doing some of those during this dead time and it’s also like I kind of I did a I did a 10- minute eight minute video on the nickel defense just a very very basic instructional guide to like this is why it’s called nickel etc etc and I end up just like anybody who teaches knows you learn a lot more even when you’re trying to teach the simple stuff I’ve got a kid I’m gonna a 12-year-old I’m gonna work with in a couple days to teach him the basics of playing defensive line and I’m terrified of it because uh to break something down into its most basic form it’s so difficult I don’t I don’t know if I I don’t know if I if I know how to teach somebody to get in a three-point stance but it’s kind of an important thing in football uh crazy to think for some rookie quarterbacks it’s literally their first job yes yes Brandon that’s it’s it’s nuts that’s where I like I wish I wish every young athlete could have especially a really tough summer job that with a kind of a jerk of a boss to that just so you understand all those things that are expected of an employee because there’s especially if you’re a talented College athlete depending on which program you’re in you know they’re they’re not all Alabama you they’re not all Ohio Ohio state they’re not all well some of the swack schools those coaches are uh tough but like they’re not all that you know like no matter how big or small the college it is some are really sloppily run some are really run really well and some guys get to the NFL and they’ve never had that genuine that genuine expectation of an employee and uh it’s called it’s kind of a culture shock to him uh I cannot tell you I won’t do that I don’t I’m not looking for cheap clicks here I’m not going to throw a lot of them are good guys some of these young quarterbacks not all of them were starters when you witness the high standard somebody has for themselves it’s easier to understand the standard they also have for you yes yes Astros is above 500 it’s a big deal it’s a bigger deal than I thought I could ever enjoy out of this current Astros team but I’m psyched about it well they’re the best team in June it’s a the season starts on June 1 isn’t that an old saying somewhere somehow the season the baseball season starts June 1 uh you’re welcome Evan uh that’s promising to hear uh standing over a cornerback and getting flagged for taunting then fumbling into the end zone yes yes that’s exactly that’s the that’s the Ravens correct are we not yeah what’s your projection for will this season okay that’s a it’s a good question because I did if you joined late I don’t like setting specific number goals I do think that again sacks are overrated if you start to look at him is like the one thing that defines whether a guy is good or not in a year and there’s some Randomness to it but the best pass rushers consistently get double digit sacks per year you know Houston strens brought up Jevan Clowney earlier is a guy that’s been productive but without double digit sacks that is true and Clowney probably doesn’t get as much credit as he should for just being so good against the run but he’s still also he lacks some things as a pass rushers if you’re genuinely one of the Elite pass rushers you’re pretty consistently going to get double digit sacks per year so my goal for will would be the same that he had stated was double digit sacks we went through earlier if you’re joining right now and looked at how many guys sack leaders from recent years miles Garrett TJ watt Nick Bosa denil Hunter um Aaron Donald even though he’s an interior guy JJ Watt interior mostly back when he was a rookie but so many of those guys you go right down the line JJ wasn’t last five years but I got to throw it’s a Texans podcast I got to throw JJ into the mix so many of those guys were single digit sacks their first year doubl digit sacks their next year Max Crosby was the one guy who regressed a little bit but started off with 10 sacks so a lot of that reflects just how technical a skill it is and even for guys like Aaron Donald who is pretty technically skilled his rookie year it just takes a while to figure it out we saw we saw that transformation with Will from the beginning beginning of the year to the end of the year it’s those last couple steps it’s that last3 seconds before you get to the quarterback or before you get to the top of the rush that really requires refinement and I think will is he’s working on all the right things and you know Matt Burke said that that’s really showing up that you can see that the stuff that denil has been working on with Will showed up in the spring you can tell that a little bit even though it’s no pads cuz out on the edge those pass rush drills you can get a little bit closer to Real World stuff even though there’s no shoulder pads it’s the it’s the coordination of the hands and the feet versus the offensive line and his spacing and everything so um I I feel good that he’ll get double digit sacks this year every time I listen to a WJ interview I’m urged to remind the critic of us trading up for him that his leadership and maturity is or was a big reason for it he’ll maximize 100% of his abilities I think that the comments he made at the end of the season a day or two after the Baltimore Ravens loss was probably one of the more freakishly mature things I’ve ever heard a rookie say because will basically gave a sermon on how important it is to care about every person in the building the not just the guys on the team not just the coaches not even just the equipment staff but the the secretaries in the front office the people working in the ticket office the security guards like all those things that a lot of young guys just don’t even have a grasp on that they’re just trying to you take care of Numero Uno which is fine you’re just your head is swimming as a rookie and you you do have to be more focused on yourself than you are on others hopefully as you get older just as it is in life as you get older you try to expand your circle outward and start to start to help others around you but will was like like like I took something from it I felt like I I was taking notes from my own personal life on what will was saying so I think it’s a it’s a really good point uh do I think the addition of Ben scronic uh will we keep another fullback on the roster yeah I think the competition between Harriston and uh ah damn it the the touchdown getter there um that’s the competition for starting fullback scronic is used as a fullback but kind of in a gadget Manner and I I think that’s his body type you know he’s he’s way more receiver than he is fullback or tight end so I think that’s something he’s able to do but you remember when they did it in with the Rams and was a kind of a big news story it was for like a two or three week period and then the Rams pulled back on it too because it’s uh it’s something you can show that perhaps the offense isn’t ready for but it’s not like he’s going to be a full-time a full-time fullback versus now when you have like when you’re in three wide receiver sets and the other team has nickel five defensive backs on the field like lighter Personnel that’s when you can start bringing him into to be a fullback or what have you but when they’re lined up and they want to get Damen pierce the ball and they want to pull a guard and just run old-fashioned power lead or anything that’s going to be an actual fullback Beck thank you my God I had a to to honor our forefathers and Independence Day I’m drinking a light beer which I’m sure would make them if they knew light beer was a thing they’d probably be rolling over in their graves and ask whether was it even worth it was it even worth it you know back then they did serve like a very low alcohol Al in factories because it would keep the it was like an antibiotic so the alcohol would keep the water from being just swill and they would drink this like GRL of of a grain and low alcohol beer so but it doesn’t I can’t call it light beer when they use it to work like 12 hours day in a a day in a very very non oia approved Tannery back in the day uh a lot of sacks of clowny misses or him falling failing to finish yes uh I wish there was a sack assist ratio yeah the first guy to make the pressure sets up someone else for the sack that’s where I think clown is a good guy to bring up when it comes to where will Anderson was still a working progress his rookie year was that Clowney is good at getting close to the quarterback and was better in some respects at that final finishing move but didn’t really have the bend to to get to the quarterback to to get that change of Direction at the very end of a rush but yeah there’s there’s parts of Clowney that are I mean if you were if you were a 15th overall pick back in the day I I think that people would have viewed him differently I saw people talking last year like like wow Clowney’s never played like this before yeah he did he did for like a three-year stretch in Houston it’s just because he was a number one overall pick for Houston then the the sack numbers were never going to justify that pick sacks do for all of the conversation about like saying sacks don’t matter it’s really like to put it bluntly that’s just false they really really matter like a sack is worth I want to say it’s five times as much on like a win probability basis than a pressure yeah pressure can cause an interception or what have you but sacks are Drive Killers sacks are just very very valuable it’s like when you start to use them as the only thing that defines a player that’s where it’s not valid so it’s somewhere in between they totally totally matter just not as much as the the altar that like the people prey to the sack shouldn’t be the one Almighty thing that defines whether or not you’re a good football player and oh is it can oh yeah it’s can it’s can is it Canadian day or Canada Day that’s why they’re having the early game up in Toronto correct which Altuve is not playing in because Altuve has a sorto because it was a damn because he Damned hit it off his toe and even though four different umpires couldn’t see it and uh then I guess he was driving up to Toronto and got lost on the way up there which I thought was a joke at first but spolan tweeted it so uh there we go I take one more and I want to try to keep this to less than a half hour I’d imagine sko as the backup X to Nico my question would be if they’d be able to keep seven wide receivers if they can create a Swiss army knife and a special teams roster spot for saronic the you know the the one thing that we don’t know is exactly how they’re going to approach roster construction with a new kickoff return roles because they’re going to need different athletes in different body types perhaps than before on both kickoff and kickoff return so they might they might end up having to keep like one extra special teamer and if the the versatility of scronic is probably going to help him out a lot there so uh okay one more let’s see thoughts on the Hall of Fame game how can we use it as a benefit to observe the depth of our team I think just that I think you already said it Evan it’s a there’s there’s not going to be any starters playing for either team for the most part in that Hall of Fame game so this for a lot of the young guys is going to be a really good opportunity as the preseason games have been dwindling in number and at some point will get reduced even more this especially with guys that you’re trying to figure out whether okay how good are they on special teams and then can they be a backup that’s that’s one extra opportunity for the Texans this year I’ll look at it that way so thank you everybody thanks for hanging out appreciate it check out the if you’re ever curious about just the basics like why the hell do they call it nickel go ahead and check out that video that I did yesterday and we’ll do this again tomorrow thanks everybody

Former Houston Texans defensive lineman Seth Payne reacts to Texans DE Will Anderson’s appearance on The Rich Eisen Show.

Full Interview on The Rich Eisen Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chrWfKnJ2Ww&t=206s