The Houston Texans were lucky to make it through preseason with just the one major injury in running back Lamar Miller, to cope with. However, this was not the extent of the damage sustained.
Second-year tight end Jordan Thomas suffered a cracked rib in their preseason Week 4 loss to the LA Rams, meanwhile, rookie tight end Kahale Warring has featured sparingly throughout the preseason with a concussion and a hamstring issue, per Pro Football Talk.
As a result, the decision was made to move them both over to the injured reserve list.
“We just felt like, relative to where they were health-wise and the amount of time they would be out, we felt like it was in the best interest of the team where we were from a numbers standpoint at tight end to do that, and then obviously have the ability to possibly bring one or both of them back,” admitted coach Bill O’Brien on Tuesday,
“You’re allowed to bring two guys back, so maybe we would do that so they could practice after six weeks and possibly bring them back after the eighth game.”
In the meantime, the Texans will be relying on Jordan Akins, Darren Fells, Jerrel Adams, and recently signed Logan Paulsen to take over at tight end.
“We signed Logan because we felt like without those two guys we needed some help to be able to block the edge and do some things in the intermediate passing game,” said O’Brien. “He came in here yesterday and works hard. You can tell already, hard worker, tough guy and learns well. So, that’s just something we felt like was in the best interest of the roster.”
32-year old Paulsen entered the NFL in 2010 as an undrafted free agent out of UCLA. Since then he has gone on to make 120 regular-season appearances for the Washington Redskins, Chicago Bears, San Francisco 49ers, and most recently the Atlanta Falcons.
Both Fells and Paulsen are experienced blockers in the NFL, something the Texans will have to use to their advantage with their still newly assembled and relatively unproven offensive line looking to help get the most out of quarterback Deshaun Watson this year.
