Texans invite 8 players to attend expansion draft

Well. I guess this is a pretty good indicator of who some of the players to be chosen will be. Three others are also mentioned as possibly being on their list. Not a bad nucleus of players to start with.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/sports/1258608

Texans target eight elite players
By CARLTON THOMPSON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

Ryan Young was the first player to arrive in Houston for Monday's NFL expansion draft, but he won't be the last. Seven other players have been invited to attend, according to several league sources.

Jacksonville offensive tackle Tony Boselli, Baltimore linebacker Jamie Sharper, New York Jets cornerbacks Marcus Coleman and Aaron Glenn, Jacksonville defensive tackles Gary Walker and Seth Payne, and Baltimore receiver/return specialist Jermaine Lewis are the other players who will be in Houston.

The Texans' policy has been to avoid commenting on individual players they might select in the draft, which will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center and televised live by ESPN, beginning at 2 p.m.

General manager Charley Casserly has said the Texans will draft 12 to 18 players whose salary-cap numbers represent at least 38 percent of the $71.8 million salary cap, or $27,284,000. That approach is the alternative to selecting at least 30 players, which is what previous expansion teams have done.

The combined 2002 salary-cap number of the aforementioned players is $39.4 million. The Texans are spending so much money via the expansion draft because the pool of players is so attractive and because the upcoming free-agent crop is considered weak. Clearly, the best bargain of the group is Young, a three-year starter who will count just $563,000 against the cap next season.

Whereas he once was disappointed to be on the expansion list, the Jets offensive tackle can't wait to hear his name called Monday.

"I hope I'm not here not to be taken," Young joked. "That would be embarrassing. I'm told that I'm here to be drafted on Monday. I'm here a couple of days early to check out the city. I'm going to look around and check out some different areas. They invited me in for the draft on Monday, and my wife has never been to Houston, so we decided to come in for the whole weekend."

Not surprisingly, the Texans are loading up on players from the Jaguars, Jets and Ravens -- three teams who are in some of the worst salary-cap shape in the league and were put in a position of having to make decisions based on finances rather than talent.

Teams don't have to lose more than two players unless they want to, and it appears the Jets and Jaguars have decided that's what they need to do to get their salary-cap situations in order.

The Jaguars are $28 million over the cap, the Ravens are over by $22.5 million, and the Jets need to trim $19.4 million. The Jaguars can free up $17.4 million by losing Boselli, Walker and Payne; the Jets can shave $14 million off the cap with the exits of Young, Glenn and Coleman; and the Ravens will save $7.96 million when the Texans draft Sharper and Lewis.

There have been reports the Texans have brokered behind-the-scenes deals with certain teams regarding pullbacks in Monday's draft and that they have begun discussions on a new three-year deal for Glenn, which would be against league rules, considering Glenn is on another team's roster. Casserly said both reports were inaccurate.

The Texans also are expected to draft Cleveland guard Jeremy McKinney, Washington guard Matthew Campbell, and possibly Seattle return specialist Charlie Rogers, among others.

"We've tried to refrain from talking about individuals until Monday, but we've spent a lot of time on this," Texans coach Dom Capers said. "It goes back to all the mock expansion drafts that we've had.

"We've been through it to the point where we have a pretty good feel, but we still have some things to finalize over the weekend leading to Monday. But we've spent enough time on it that we have a pretty good idea of how things are going to go. We'll just have to see, depending on how the pullbacks go."

Once a team loses a player, it can pull back one of the remaining players from its list. If the Texans select another player from the same team's list, that team can remove the rest of its list if it chooses.

"They've got some problems up in New York, and I guess this is the way they're trying to solve them," Young said. "I talked to Marcus last week when we were both here for our physicals, and we were both disappointed. But I guess it's part of the business. I'm over the initial shock of being on the expansion list. After seeing and meeting some people here and seeing what's going on, I'm definitely excited about being here."