The Texans breathed a collective sigh of relief on Wednesday afternoon as they found out left tackle Duane Brown had nothing more than a bone bruise in his lower left leg. He will not miss a significant amount of time.
Brown, a second-team All-Pro in 2011, injured his left ankle in practice on Wednesday morning and had to be taken to a hospital for X-rays.
"We're lucky," Texans coach Gary Kubiak said. "Arian (Foster) made a cut, and (Brown) was engaged and he got kicked. It scares you, but he's fine. He's got a bad bruise. He's probably going to miss a couple days, and we'll be smart with him through the week. Oh, boy. He's an important piece of the puzzle… You sure to hate to lose guys that way, but he's going to be fine."
Brown said after the Texans' Wednesday afternoon practice that he was "pretty sore" but that the injury was "nothing major."
"(It was) extremely scary," Brown said. "I've been blessed not to get hurt that often, so whenever you go down and it's kind of hard for you to walk the next play, it's extremely scary. When I got the X-rays and everything came back negative, I was extremely relieved.
"I don't expect to be out too long. I'll be out there soon."
Brown said he got a text message from quarterback Matt Schaub while he was still at the hospital, with Schaub saying he was happy to hear that everything was OK. Brown allowed only 2.5 sacks last season, and Schaub said Friday that he thinks Brown has molded himself into the best left tackle in the NFL.
"We're really relieved to know that it's nothing too serious, that he's going to be just fine," Schaub said. "You hate to see anyone go down for any length of time, but just glad he's going to be fine."
Rashad Butler will work as the Texans' starting left tackle while Brown is out. Derek Newton will practice as the starting right tackle. The two players are competing for a starting job on the right side.
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