Linebacker Danny Clark started eight games for the Texans in 2007, his only season with the team.
The Texans have signed free agent linebacker Danny Clark, who played with the team in 2007 and started eight games at strongside linebacker. Brian Cushing, the Texans' starter on the strongside, was suspended for the first four games of the 2010 season last Friday.
Clark (6-2, 245) recorded 43 tackles and an interception in his one season in Houston. The 10-year NFL veteran spent the last two seasons with the New York Giants, starting 26 of 32 games.
"Danny was a real physical player for us – very, very strong at the point of the attack," Texans coach Gary Kubiak said on Wednesday. "Danny loves to thump, as we say in our meetings. He loves to hit. He played very well for Joe (Marciano) on special teams. He's a veteran player.
"Our players respect him a lot, and I think he was very positive in our locker room. We hated to lose him two years ago. So it's good to have him back. He's got a lot of downs under his belt in this league."
Clark, 33, played with the Jacksonville Jaguars (2000-04), Oakland Raiders (2004-05) and New Orleans Saints (2006) before his stints with the Texans (2007) and Giants (2008-09). He has played in 154 career games, with 93 starts and 560 tackles.
Kubiak recently refuted speculation that weakside starter Zac Diles would switch to the strongside in Cushing's absence, instead saying that Xavier Adibi or Kevin Bentley could fill in for Cushing in the first month of the upcoming season.
"That's where Danny will start off, too," Kubiak said. "Like I said, we're going to stay exactly where we're at right now when we go practice. We're going to stay pat. We'll go through our offseason and see where we're at, but I think we've got players very capable of stepping in and doing a good job, and that could be Kevin, it could be 'X,' it could be Danny.
"They'll determine that, not just us setting a depth chart. So let's see how the offseason goes. We'll make a decision going into camp if we're going to work different assuming that we're going to lose Brian, but we're just looking forward to the OTAs."
The Texans' OTAs begin next Monday, May 17, and will last for four weeks.
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