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Rookie diary: James Casey

By James Casey
October 30, 2009 Comments (0) | Avg. Rating
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Tight end James Casey, drafted in the fifth round (152nd overall) this April, is a former minor league baseball player who joined the Texans as a 24-year-old rookie from Rice. He has been chronicling his rookie season with weekly diary entries for HoustonTexans.com.

I don't have any really big news this week, like last week when I announced I was having a baby. But I did get to meet two former Presidents, both of the Bushes, when they were on the sidelines before the 49ers game. They didn't come up and shake hands with everybody, but I thought, "I've gotta take this chance and opportunity to at least go shake their hand, say my name and ‘Nice to meet you.'"

Right as I was shaking President George W. Bush's hand, somebody took a really good picture that was sent to me. So now I can hang that picture up in my office one day or something like that. It was an awesome experience to meet two Presidents like that on the Texans' field.

Getting to the game, though, we played really well against the 49ers. We definitely didn't play a perfect game and we let them sneak back in there in the second half, but you've always got stuff to work on.

On a personal note, I got to play a lot more offensively than I did in the previous games. I played 10 offensive snaps, which was more snaps than I had combined for the whole season before that. It felt really good to get out there and contribute, especially in the fourth quarter when the game was on the line. I also was out on the field when O.D. caught that long touchdown pass. If you rewind the play, you might see me as the wingback getting a little block in.

O.D. had another great game. As a tight end group, O.D., Joel, Anthony and I want to be the best in the NFL, so it's always great to see our tight ends do really well. We pride ourselves on trying to become the best group at our position in the league.

I played 10 offensive plays and 10 special teams plays in the game. Every week, I always re-live the plays that I didn't do so well on or could have done better on. It's kind of like taking a test in school. I always thought I did a lot worse than I actually did because I was always thinking about the hard questions or the ones I might not have gotten right. With bad plays, it's almost like you keep thinking about them until you get out there to play another football game because you want to atone for your mistakes and get better.

"When I was a kid, I always dressed up as a football player... It's kind of crazy now that I'm a professional football player and I was dressing up as something on Halloween that I was actually going to be when I got older."

James Casey
I got to go to a Rice game for the first time this season last Saturday. It was cool to go back and watch a game from the stands, because I know all the guys there except for the freshmen. Jarett Dillard came with me – he was on his bye week with the Jaguars. It was really cool to be there watching them play. I'm definitely rooting for those guys, and I know they're going to continue to get better.

The whole team's really excited about this Buffalo game. It's a really big game for us. If we can get to 5-3, it obviously keeps us in the mix of everything. And I'm excited about going to Buffalo in general; I've never been to New York. I think the high is supposed to be like 46 degrees, which isn't super cold, but it's going to be chilly and the weather might be bad.

We've been lucky this week to have bad weather during practice. It's kind of hard to call that lucky, but it's been really windy the last couple of days and it rained a little bit, so we were able to practice in an environment that it might be like in Buffalo. So I guess Mother Nature's rooting for the Texans also.

Halloween is coming up, and unfortunately, I won't be able to dress up or go out and do anything because we'll be in Buffalo. I know a lot of the other guys on the team dressed up and had a little get-together on Monday. I had another obligation so I couldn't go, but a lot of the guys had some really, really good costumes from what I heard and saw in pictures.

I remember when I was a kid, I always dressed up as a football player. Halloween is obviously during football season, and I was always playing Pee-Wee football when I was little. I didn't have a lot of money, so I always just put on my football pads and the uniform of whatever Pee-Wee team I was playing with and went trick-or-treating.

It's kind of crazy now that I'm a professional football player and I was dressing up as something on Halloween that I was actually going to be when I got older. It's pretty cool to think about that.

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween. Please feel free to send in any questions or comments about my rookie diary.

James Casey rookie diary archive

10/23: Expecting a baby; Rice football
10/16: Getting more snaps; a case of food poisoning
10/9: Making bigger contributions; swine flu
10/2: Step-by-step through the game day experience
9/25: First road game; getting ready for a Rice reunion
9/18: My first game; buying a new suit
9/7: Making the 53-man roster
8/29: Preparing for Monday Night Football
8/25: Playing at Reliant Stadium; trying different positions
8/18: First road trip, first NFL game
8/12: Camp life; preparing for Kansas City
8/1: The first two days of camp; filling in at fullback
7/19: A busy week; thoughts on the MLB All-Star Game
7/10: Rookie symposium; preparing for camp
6/21: My first month as a Texan
6/14: Wrapping up OTAs
6/5: Playing golf; signing autographs
5/29: First two weeks on the job 

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