The Houston Texans had a single mindset going into the 2021 NFL draft: add the best football players.
That meant the Texans would go position heavy and take a tight end such at Miami’s Brevin Jordan in the fifth round. The acquisition was about adding a good football player, regardless of the position.
However, the approach has had to change for the Texans during the signing of priority free agents.
“Quite frankly the undrafted process is a little bit more position specific just relative to what your needs are because a lot of those players you’re looking to add for depth or whatever the case may be, and if you have X amount of players at one position, if you add a player at that position, are you adding a player that’s necessarily better than what you have?” general manager Nick Caserio said on May 1 on a Zoom call with reporters.
The Texans signed four priority free agents after the draft in Missouri receiver Damon Hazelton, Texas A&M center Ryan McCollum, Central Florida receiver Marlon Williams, and Texas A&M tackle Carson Green.
“You actually can be a little bit more strategic, and you’ve actually probably looked at it and tried to target some specific players,” Caserio said. “I would say in this particular instance this year our volume is going to be probably pretty low, so again, it’s really more about looking at your numbers, looking at your roster, and then just trying to fill it accordingly.”
Caserio admits that having to go from looking for specific players to filling specific needs in less than 24 hours is “kind of counterintuitive.”
Said Caserio: “You spend all this time about the draft picks, and then you get to the undrafted part and you’re actually a little bit more targeted, a little bit more specific, but I’d say that’s probably the case for those teams.”
One example the Texans and the New England Patriots’ success with an undrafted free agent is safety A.J. Moore, who went undrafted from Ole Miss in 2018.