For the sixth time this season, receiver Will Fuller did not complete a game due to injury or missed a game due to injury.
On Saturday, Fuller left the Texans’ 23-20 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first half with a groin injury. He did so following a week in which he was limited in practice due to a hamstring. The fourth-year wide receiver finished with two receptions for 11 yards.
Fuller previously missed four contests with the hamstring. He has never played a complete season, which, for the Texans, is concerning.
“He’s a great guy, love coaching him, but it’s hard for him to stay healthy,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said of Fuller on Saturday. “That’s the bottom line. Hopefully, we can help him stay healthy because this team is a very good team when we have him in the lineup.”
On the season, Fuller has 49 receptions for 670 yards and three touchdowns. The Texans are a better offense when the speed merchant hailing from Notre Dame plays, as indicated by their 7-2 record when he starts and finishes games in 2019.
The closest Fuller has gotten to completing a full season was in his rookie year, 2016. With Brock Osweiler and Tom Savage acting as his quarterbacks, he played in 14 games, missing time for hamstring and knee injuries.
In 2017, Fuller played 10 games. He missed the entire preseason and the first three games to a broken collarbone. Later on, he missed three more games due to cracked ribs.
Fuller, after recovering from a hamstring injury in the 2018 training camp, suffered the worst injury of his career in his third-year. He tore his ACL on Oct. 28, a win over the Miami Dolphins. He played just seven games on the season.
Though a game-changing talent for the Texans, Fuller can’t stay on the field, and it will be something the Texans will take a look at the in the offseason. Though the Texans picked up Fuller’s fifth-year option on his rookie deal in the 2019 offseason, there is no dead cap associated with releasing Fuller. Houston employed a similar method with former 2015 first-round cornerback Kevin Johnson, who they picked up the fifth-year option on in 2018 but later cut in the 2019 offseason.
