Houston Texans full 2020 mock draft: Full 7 rounds

Tennessee’s Darrell Taylor (6-foot-4, 267 pounds) is a bendy, athletic pass rusher with enough burst and power to handle responsibilities as a down lineman or outside linebacker in Houston’s 3-4 scheme.

Taylor was one of the best pass rushers in the SEC over the last two seasons, totaling 8+ sacks and 10+ tackles for loss for the Volunteers.

Taylor fits the athletic profile and has the play strength at the point of attack that the Texans look for in their edge rushers, so he makes a ton of sense here in the third round for a team that ranked near the bottom of the league in Pass Rush Win Rate last season.

Losing nose tackle D.J. Reader in free agency opens up a big hole in the Texans’ run defense, so they head back to Salt Lake in round four to take Utah’s Leki Fotu.

Fotu is a monstrously-large human being who plays with the kind of power to ragdoll opposing blockers at will. He’s a surprisingly good athlete for his size (6-foot-5, 330 pounds) and is best suited to play as a run-stuffing nose tackle in Houston’s 3-4 scheme. He doesn’t offer much in terms of pass rush ability but if he did, he’d probably be a lock as a top-50 pick.

Replacing the production of Reader, particularly against the run, will be instrumental in Houston’s 2020 success so if they don’t land a defensive tackle with one of their second-round selections, Fotu could very well be the guy they target in round four.