- Today was the official day of kicker competition. It was pretty unsurprising that the Texans waited until they kicked the fans out of practice before they let them go at it, as animosity from last season's Kris Brown campaign angered quite a few. Gary Kubiak and the kickers remained stoic in the quote sheet on the question of who is winning the competition. Brown was soundly out-kicked at OTA's, and today Nick Scurfield notes that Rackers was perfect while Brown missed again. As much as I'm sure everyone wants Kris Brown around as a link to the original team, I think it's pretty clear that Rackers has an empirical lead on him. As long as he doesn't give the Texans a reason to doubt him, I think he'll be kicking off against the Colts. However, for the sake of keeping it close to the vest, special teams coach Joe Marciano says that it's dead-even.
- Drew Dougherty notes that Darryl Sharpton ran with the first-teamers on the weakside, and if you re-click that quotes link, you'll see that DeMeco has taken a liking to the young man. Here's one writer who is excited to see Sharpton in an actual game.
- Belated notes from the ground on Monday from Chris at Houston Diehards and Alan Burge. Chris is concerned about Dan Orlovsky, while Burge says that Kareem Jackson is drinking from a fire hose. Sadly, I don't think that was a UHF reference. Meanwhile, Steph Stradley explains the Swagger Wagon and rehashes the merits of Aaron Schobel
- Jacoby Jones on Andre Johnson: "I aggravate the mess out him."
- David Dulati at FS Houston has a piece up on the offensive line battles in the interior, and it's a killer. Very interesting to see the difference between Chris Myers' philosophy on starting ("The way I approach training camp is I come in every single year as if I have to earn my spot,") and Wade Smith's direct quote:
"I came here to be a starter," Smith said. "Whatever spot that's at...right now I'm competing at center."
I'd still be shocked if money didn't eventually talk in that battle. But we'll see. It's another closed session tomorrow, and they won't even let reporters tweet from the facility, so look for another short update tomorrow evening.