-The big story of the last couple of days of training camp has been the release of the unofficial depth chart, sent out late Friday night. Of course, the depth chart really didn't give us much new information. In fact, it's almost a carbon copy of last year's Week 17 starters, minus Dunta Robinson and plus Kareem Jackson, so I wouldn't read too much into it. That said, there were a few notes of interest.
Trindon Holliday appears to be solidly out of the running to play at wide receiver, which jives with camp reports that he doesn't look very comfortable out there. Chris Henry has leaped Jeremiah Johnson on the depth chart, which is bad news for animals that could be skinned to create petls. The Texans do, apparently, view nose tackle as an actual position. Danny Clark is buried way down on the chart at MLB, and with Kubiak saying yesterday that Xavier Adibi's injury could force the team to move Zac Diles to SLB, this could mean that Darryl Sharpton has an opening on the weak-side. Or at least that this seems to be a "legitimate" option in the eyes of Texans brass. Finally, it appears that Troy Nolan's ball skills have impressed the Texans more than Dominique Barber's, as he is backing up the injury-prone Eugene Wilson while Barber is behind Bernard Pollard.
- John McClain got to work on convincing the public that the Texans are interested in Aaron Schobel again, here is the latest evidence of that: McClain titles his piece, "Texans owner acknowledges interest in Schobel," then proceeds to use the following quotes:
"(General manager) Rick (Smith) is talking with our coaches, and they're evaluating things and trying to determine exactly what role a player like Aaron would fill," McNair said. "We all respect him.
"He's a good player, and I've always admired the way he plays the game. He's certainly played hard every time he's played against us. He's got a great reputation around the league.
"I think anybody would be happy to have him."
Of course, nowhere in these quotes does McNair acknowledge a direct interest in Schobel. Look at the words he uses: evaluating, determine, anybody. You would have to have an agenda to misread these words as anything close to interest. He said Schobel was a good player, but he never said the Texans were in contact with him or that the Texans had interest in him. In fact, the phrasing "what kind of role a player like Aaron would fill," leads me to believe that the evaluation concluded that the Texans already had three solid defensive ends. Which is both true and a very big obstacle in the way of Schobel becoming a Texan. It might be a fairer question to ask if Aaron Schobel is a good fit for the Texans, and Paul Kuharsky both asks and answers that question in a way that I agree with.
- The Texans bent to the will of the fans and have let a seventh open practice be created this Monday. It hasn't sold out yet, and you can get your tickets here if you're willing to make it from 8-10 AM. I hypothesize that this will be the lowest attended practice, given it's Monday status as well as the extremely late notice. But, we'll see. I ordered myself a ticket but haven't decided whether I'll show up or not yet.
- Once again I'll refer you to some indie guys doing some really great work on the ground: Chris at Houston Diehards and Alan Burge at the Examiner. Chris has tried to focus more on an individual account, and you can find his theories on Antwaun Molden, Connor Barwin, and Dorin Dickerson here. Burge prefers to do accounts by the day, and his Thursday wrap-up is up.as well as his Saturday one. Also be sure you're following BigRon281 on Twitter, because he has been, in my estimation, the most dedicated tweeter out there at the open practices. Always full of insight, and looking forward to his blog entries. Texans Bullblog has also been putting up some solid camp pieces from the ground, like this one on the DB's at camp.
- A slew of solid one-on-ones with players have come out over the last couple of days. Jordan Godwin covered Bill Kollar's love of local guy Earl Mitchell, and McClain covered the pain and agony that Mike Brisiel is trying to push himself through to nab a starting job. Anna Megan-Raley looks at the bond between Jacoby Jones and his mother, and Steph Stradley has philosophy major and noted Pterodactyl Arian Foster's poetry.
- The three most interesting quotes from the last few days, to me, are as follows:
"Kevin and Jacoby are going head to head. That's the bottom line. Kevin's the starter he's earned that right. We've got a heck of a player pushing to be a starter in this league. We're putting them right down the middle. It's very competitive. Our whole group is extremely competitive." - Gary Kubiak
It's looking good for Jacoby's chances to stay on the field more this year, which was one of the main things I banged on about this offseason as far as the offense maintaining it's flow.
(on being in the same system a few years in a row and its benefits) "It is a big difference. I guess I never really understood how much of a difference it was." - Dan Orlovsky
I'm starting to think you might be in the wrong system, Danno.
(on the timetable of LB Xavier Adibi's recovery) "It'll be a few weeks. The news was good we probably thought that it was better than it could've been. He's going to miss some time I would probably say a few weeks. A few weeks in training camp is a lot so we'll see. This team has counted on him a great deal. It's been unfortunate that he's been nick up a lot and see if can get him back to a hundred percent and keep him on the field." - Gary Kubiak
This, to me, reads like we can start counting him out of that group hoping to get a crack at the first four games. I've never read too much into the Texans promoting Kevin Bentley as an option, because he's such a special teams stalwart, but he's only a Danny Clark injury away from being a real part of the conversation now.