On the second day of Texans mini-camp, rookies and other players continued to work without most of the team's veterans, who have the week off from practice.
The Texans are trying out seven players during the three-day mini-camp. Should they decide to sign any of those players or reach an agreement with any of their five unsigned draft picks, they'll have to release a player first as they are at the 80-man roster limit.
Head coach Gary Kubiak said that he doesn't know if the Texans will cut anybody this week.
"I don't think we're going to be in any hurry until we sign our (drafted) players," he said. "But if we think there's any question at all from a fairness standpoint if we're going to let a guy go or not, we try to do it sooner or later so that they can catch on with somebody else. But there are still a few tough decisions to make."
One player the Texans released last week, running back Ryan Moats, signed with the Minnesota Vikings on Tuesday. Moats faced an uphill battle for playing time in the' Texans backfield and now is reuniting with Vikings head coach Brad Childress, who was his offensive coordinator with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005.
QB making strides
It's been a rough couple of weeks for quarterback John David Booty's USC Trojans, who were hit hard with sanctions by the NCAA last week. Quite the opposite can be said for Booty, who has acquitted himself during organized team activities and mini-camp.
"He's really a guy who's improved throughout the camp, to me," said Kubiak, who's notoriously tough on quarterbacks. "Just picking up our system, he's gotten a ton of reps. Obviously, we're going to go to camp with three quarterbacks, so it's a tough decision to make here in the next couple of days. But he's done his part; he's shown vast improvement from Day 1 'til now."
Booty and Tyler Sheehan, an undrafted rookie out of Bowling Green, are the only quarterbacks taking reps for the Texans this week. They're competing for a roster spot behind Matt Schaub and Dan Orlovsky.
Project Dickerson
Seventh-round draft pick Dorin Dickerson played five different positions in college and is switching from tight end to wide receiver in the NFL. The Texans want him to lose 8-10 pounds to help him make the position change.
Dickerson tweaked his hamstring on Tuesday and is likely to miss Wednesday's practice, but Kubiak has been encouraged by what he's seen out of the rookie so far.
"He's got a lot of ability," Kubiak said. "Obviously, we're trying to settle him down at one spot. I like his size, I like his ability. He's got a tough group to try to crack, so to speak, and probably the way he's going to do it is as a special teams player. So we'll see how he does."
That's what he said
"It's night and day. We've got some good young players that are going to end up helping the team this year. Some guys are going to push some veterans for their job, and that's what you need to be competitive. They've got a good month yet to sit there and study film and get together with their coaches and even make up some more ground."
- Gary Kubiak, on how the young players have progressed since they arrived a month ago
