For a year, Texans general manager Charley Casserly has been surrounded by experienced coaches who could clue him in to the world of expansion. Texans head coach Dom Capers told tales of the 1995 expansion of the Carolina Panthers. Chris Palmer, the team's offensive coordinator, gave updated versions of the 1999 draft when he was head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

	Ravens linebacker Jamie Sharper could be headed to Houston.

As he approached this coming Monday's expansion draft, Casserly had to throw out most of their plans. The systems that Capers and Palmer used in those drafts have been outdated by the salary cap. The three previous expansion teams looked to expansion as an unnecessary evil. It cost them 38 percent of their cap and the only hope was to find a diamond in the rough.

The Texans plan to use this expansion draft as their free-agency period. There are better players on the unprotected list than there are in this year's free-agency class.

That's why the Texans will draft high-priced players in expansion, which is different from the past three teams that selected in excess of 30 players, mostly low-priced backups.

"Free agency is very weak this year," Casserly said. "This is the thinnest free-agent group there's ever been. So you only have so many slots to work with with your big-money players, so to speak. In looking at it, you have to combine the expansion draft and combine free agency in formulating your thinking."

The Texans will select between 15 and 20 players. They'll likely take 80 percent of a starting offensive line -- left tackle Tony Boselli (Jacksonville), left guard Matt Campbell (Washington), right guard Jeremy McKinney (Cleveland) and right tackle Ryan Young (N.Y. Jets). On defense, the Texans are expected to take at least three starters for their 3-4 scheme -- either defensive tackle Gary Walker or defensive tackle Seth Payne (Jacksonville), linebacker Jamie Sharper (Baltimore) and cornerback Marcus Coleman (N.Y. Jets). It's not out of the question for Coleman's teammate, Aaron Glenn, to join him.

"The toughest positions to fill are corner, offensive line -- especially tackle -- defensive line and quarterback," Casserly said. "Realizing that those are the toughest positions to find, so if you can help yourselves in the expansion draft or free agency in those positions before you get to the draft, that certainly is going to be a priority."

Times were different for the past expansion teams. The Browns literally got half a loaf. By 1999, teams had figured out how to handle free agency better than in 1995. They kept their best players off the expansion list, so the Browns had to hit free agency hard.

Expansion rules

1. The Texans must select between 30 to 42 players or use 38 percent of their $71.7 million cap -- $27.2 million -- of their 2002 salary cap. 2. The Texans will have three minutes to select a player starting at 3 p.m. ET. A team that has a player drafted from its unprotected list, then has two minutes to pull back a player from its remaining list. If a second player is drafted from a team, that team can then pull back its remaining two players. 3. The Texans are not permitted to select a player from a team and trade the player back to that club. 4. The Texans assume the contract of the players they select. They inherit all future prorations of signing bonuses, any guarantees and any other terms of the deal. 5. The Texans must have 38 percent of their salary cap tied up on the roster on July 15. After June 1, the minimum salaries of all of those players are guaranteed. 6. If the Texans cut an expansion-list selection and he re-signs with his old team, that re-signing team assumes all the signing bonus proration. 7. Any veteran player selected by the Texans receives a $10,000 bonus that will not count against the cap. 8. Any veteran selected by the Texans will receiver a $20,000 bonus for reporting to training camp, and that also won't count against the team's cap. 9. Any veteran who makes the Texans' active roster during the regular season receives a $30,000 bonus that doesn’t count against the team's cap. -- John Clayton

How bad was the list? Of the 150 players made available in 1999, only 33 were on rosters three seasons later. Only 11 of those 33 started at least eight games last season. Only four of the 37 players selected by the Browns -- safety Raymond Jackson, linebackers Lenoy Jones and Tarek Saleh and defensive tackle Mike Thompson are still with the Browns.

Of the 168 players made available in 1995, 62 were on rosters after three seasons.

Of course, the cost and risks were less back then. Center Jim Pyne was the Browns' first choice and he had a cap number of $1.885 million. Sixty-four players on this year's expansion list have bigger numbers than that. The only expensive ticket for the Browns came at the end of the draft when they appeased fans by taking former Brown cornerback Antonio Langham, who made more than $3 million.

"On June 1, all minimum salaries of these players are guaranteed," Casserly said. "In the history of expansion drafts, in modern times, the other three teams all took 30 to 35 players, and an average of 17 made their clubs. We're not going to be taking 30 to 35 players."

Of the three teams, though, the Texans will follow the Panthers' model more than the others'. Casserly wants to get veterans on the defense to make the team more competitive. By their second year, the Panthers were in the championship game, but they had an old defense.

Casserly wants to prevent that repeat because he won't select a player who is over the age of 30, and he won't take players that won't be available to fulfill the terms of their contracts. Capers took players on the Panthers expansion list in their 30s.

"I think in many ways, we all learn from our experience," Capers said. "In many ways, I think the success that we had early at Carolina -- winning 20 games the first two years -- ended up hurting us in the long run. We were going into the third year, we were picking 27th in the draft. We were playing a first-place schedule. When you go to the championship game, the natural progression is that people expect you to be in the Super Bowl the next year.

"We came back to probably where we were as a team that third year around, a .500 team. When you have older players, they play great the first couple years, but, as they descended, we didn't have the youth there to pick it up. It actually worked against us."

So the Texans plan to move ahead cautiously. They will get more starters from expansion than free agency and they will build their foundation through the draft.

"The majority of our big-money signings are going to come in the expansion draft as opposed to free agency," Casserly said. "We will be taking some players on Monday that are going to be starters. The feeling there is, when you go to free agency, you have to bid for players you don't know you're going to get. This is a bird in the hand."

John Clayton is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.