FanHouse EricWinston

Texans wide receiver Harry Williams was having a great camp, and had a chance of making the team based on his special teams play. Those dreams were likely ended yesterday, when Williams suffered a neck fracture while trying to make a special team tackle in the the first quarter of the Texans-Cowboys preseason game.

Williams was paralyzed on the field, but regained feeling and movement while being transported by ambulance to the hospital. The fracture is of the C3 vertebra, and he will be have surgery in Dallas this weekend to fuse his spine. Team orthopedic specialist Dr. Walter Lowe and coach Gary Kubiak discusses the injury in more depth in the above HoustonTexans.com video. They believe his prognosis is good.

Lots of confusion out there on who is going to get the running back touches for the Texans. I think the confusion exists because I am not sure even the Texans coaches know what they are going to do.

Here's what we know as of today:

1. Green's Injury: Ahman Green was in and out of the lineup for most of last year, and then put on IR due to a bone bruise of his knee. He has recovered from that, but was the anti-weeble in the first preseason game, falling down on his first play without being touched due to a groin injury.

2. Green as Starter: Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle reports that the coaches believe in that Ahman Green will be back for the beginning of the season. As Justice says in his blog comments:

I was told by both Rick Smith and Gary Kubiak that they think he'll be the starting running back in the regular-season opener. He's telling them he'll be ready, which is different than last season when he was never optimistic about coming back. But the biggest factor is that from a talent standpoint he's light years ahead of the other RBs except for possibly the rookie, and there's no way they're going to throw him out there against the 3-4 in the first game.

And he says more about Green in this other blog post.

3. Green Gone: Justice's colleague, John McClain speculates that if Green doesn't play in the preseason, he is going to get cut.

Lots of confusion out there on who is going to get the running back touches for the Texans. I think the confusion exists because I am not sure even the Texans coaches know what they are going to do.

Here's what we know as of today:

1. Green's Injury: Ahman Green was in and out of the lineup for most of last year, and then put on IR due to a bone bruise of his knee. He has recovered from that, but was the anti-weeble in the first preseason game, falling down on his first play without being touched due to a groin injury.

2. Green as Starter: Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle reports that the coaches believe in that Ahman Green will be back for the beginning of the season. As Justice says in his blog comments:

I was told by both Rick Smith and Gary Kubiak that they think he'll be the starting running back in the regular-season opener. He's telling them he'll be ready, which is different than last season when he was never optimistic about coming back. But the biggest factor is that from a talent standpoint he's light years ahead of the other RBs except for possibly the rookie, and there's no way they're going to throw him out there against the 3-4 in the first game.

And he says more about Green in this other blog post.

3. Green Gone: Justice's colleague, John McClain speculates that if Green doesn't play in the preseason, he is going to get cut.

Last year, Texans right tackle Eric Winston quietly had a solid season for a Texans team that allowed near the fewest sacks in the league. In a recent HoustonTexans.com video, Winston talks about last year and his expectations for this year (anything but playoffs would be a disappointment).

The playoff talk is what smart players are supposed to say, but the most interesting part of the video is Winston talking about how excited he is to work with offensive line guru Alex Gibbs. Some believe that Gibbs is the most important acquisition in the Texans short history in that he will improve technique and make this line tougher. Interestingly, what Winston talks about the most is how Gibbs works to improve the lines' understanding of the mental aspects of the game.

Last year, it was surprising to me how well the Texans could throw the ball without teams having to respect the running game much. Since Kubiak has been coach, the running back group has looked like inhabitants of the island of misfit toys. A group that no other team in the league would want.

Think you know about zone blocking schemes (ZBS)? This YouTube put together by Houston sports talk radio host / Houston Chronicle blogger Lance Zierlein and former Texans linebacker Kailee Wong is a great primer showing you what zone blocking is supposed to look like.

They also discuss some of the attributes you are looking for when acquiring the athletic players you need to run a ZBS. Though there are few teams in the NFL that still run primarily zone blocking, just about every team in the league runs some of it as a part of their offensive packages.

If you would like to learn more about ZBS as it relates the Houston Texans, check out more after the jump.

Here's the recap from the Texans website, the Bucs website and the AP version. You can see the game highlights here.

Yesterday, I was fortunate to sit behind the Texans bench, and I thought I might be able to give you a few game day observations and photos you won't find anywhere else (from mostly a Texans' perspective given my vantage point).

Quarterbacks

The game was a battle of the backup quarterbacks with Sage Rosenfels for the Texans and Luke McCown for the Bucs getting the starts due to injuries to the starters.

It is no surprise to Texans fans that Sage Rosenfels can move the ball, even against some good defenses. His aggressiveness sometimes gets him in trouble, but the Bucs weren't able to capitalize enough on the sacks and fumbles. This picture below shows the medical staff attending to Rosenfels chin after one of the sacks.