Plying one’s trade
Jets’ swap puts D-lineman back in comfy 3-4 system
Henry Anderson was playing video games at home on the afternoon of April 28 when his phone rang.
He looked at the caller ID: “Chris Ballard,” as in the general manager of the Colts, the team Anderson had played for the past three years.
“When I looked down and saw the GM’s name on my phone, I thought I should probably pause my video game and pick this up,” Anderson recalled this week.
Ballard was calling to tell Anderson that he had been traded to the Jets. On the third day of the draft, the Jets sent a seventhround pick to Indianapolis in return for the defensive end.
“We needed another guy at the time,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said. “We wanted a veteran guy on the inside to help out at least on the four-down packages and not just rely on a rookie going in that way. We figured he was better than most of the guys we would have taken at that pick, so we went ahead and made the trade.”
For Anderson, the trade was a bit of a life raft. The Colts were switching to a 4-3 this season under new coach Frank Reich. Anderson had spent his entire college career at Stanford and his time with the Colts in a 3-4. Anderson was excited when he heard about the trade, knowing the Jets play a 3-4 primarily.
Anderson knew he did not fit what the Colts wanted to do in 2018, but the trade still caught him off guard.
“I wasn’t totally expecting it,” Anderson said. “I didn’t really get any concrete signs ahead of time. I knew I wasn’t their ideal fit when they switched defenses. I know I’m not their prototypical D-end in that system. Looking back on it, it wasn’t something I should have been too shocked about it, but ahead of time I didn’t really know too much.”
The Jets had a hole on the defensive line after cutting Muhammad Wilkerson in February. Anderson will help fill that hole, as will thirdround pick Nathan Shepherd.
Anderson has also taken Wilkerson’s familiar jersey No. 96.
“I hadn’t even realized that [Wilkerson was gone],” Anderson said about when he was initially traded. “Over the years, you’d think of the Jets and you’d think of the D-line they had with [Leonard Williams], Sheldon Richardson, Wilkerson, [Damon Harrison], Kony Ealy was here for a little bit. I knew Sheldon had been traded, but I didn’t realize that Wilkerson had moved on. I probably had read that at some point but had forgotten.”
The 6-foot-6, 300-pounder has been a full participant in Jets’ OTA practices. It is his first time back on the field since November, when he took an elbow to his throat from a Texans running back.
“When it happened I didn’t think anything of it because you get hit in the throat all the time,” Anderson said. “Usually it’s just nothing. It feels weird and then you just keep moving on. I thought it was just another one of those things. After the game it was starting to hurt to drink water. I wanted to get it checked out. I didn’t think you could seri- ously injure your throat like that until the doctor told me.”
The doctor told Anderson he had fractured his larynx, the muscular organ that forms an air passage to the lungs and holds the vocal cords. The doctor told him if kept playing with the injury he risked death because if he was hit there again, it might have cut off his breathing. “It was scary,” Anderson said. He missed the rest of the season, a tough blow for Anderson, who had torn an ACL as a rookie. Just before the throat injury, Anderson had started to come on for the Colts. He had two sacks in his last three starts, and two weeks earlier had four tackles, a sack and a forced fumble against the Jaguars.
Now, he is back on the field with a new team, eager to prove he can contribute.
“I’m excited to work with some of the guys on the D-line,” Anderson said. “When I heard [about the trade], I just wanted to get out here and get to work and start to get to know the guys here.”