Editor's note:*Tight end **Owen Daniels* will be providing periodic diary entries for HoustonTexans.com to give fans insight into the life of a rookie draft pick.
*The weather forecast for Foxborough this Sunday will be above average. We'll have high temperatures in the mid 50s, clear skies and light winds. That is very mild for this time of the year and very unseasonably warm.
I said in an earlier entry that we would probably have to play under harsh winter weather at Gillete Stadium, but that's not going to be the case. I'm not complaining, though.
Anyways, I experienced my first NFL injury recently. Well, I don't know that I would go so far as to call it an injury, but I got a little bruise on my shoulder on the first pass I caught in the second quarter against Tennessee. It was on a screen pass and I just got hit really hard. I didn't miss any plays or anything, but it just hurt a lot. The trainers could see me trying to shake it off to make it feel better and they asked me about it. We really didn't do anything about my shoulder until the third quarter. I got a painkiller to make it feel better, but I don't know how much that helped. After the game, my shoulder felt kind of sore, but on Monday it felt terrible. It was pretty sore all day. Normally, I'm sore the day after the game, and usually my legs are more sore than anything from running around and doing so many plays. How sore I feel also depends on what kind of surface we play on. If we play on artificial turf, I'll feel way worse than I would if we played on grass. It's harder on the joints, knees and hips, and, of course, if I get hit on a certain spot, then I'll be sore there, too.
But the shoulder felt pretty bad and the medical staff said that I'd bruised my rotator cuff and I needed to strengthen the cuff to make it better. So I've been warming it up in the hot whirlpool and then we rub it down to loosen up the muscles. I've also been doing some exercises for it and icing it. I didn't do any upper body lifting. I was excused from that this week. I've been pretty fortunate that this is the only thing I've had to deal with as far as an injury this year, and it isn't a big deal. I'll be good to go for this Sunday because it's been getting better day-by-day.
If you want to know how I feel about our game against the Titans, I'll just tell you that I absolutely think we played tough and left everything on the field. I think everyone did everything they could for us to win the game and it just happened that Vince Young made a play in overtime. It could have been completely different if the coin had gone to the other side and we would have had the ball. Maybe we would have been the ones to go down and score.
I know this is technically the 14 th game of the season, but when you count the preseason and training camp, we're into week 18 of game preparation. I have to admit that I'm a little tired, just like everybody else is. But besides my shoulder, my body actually felt good this week. I'm not drained or completely worn out. I have enough energy for three more games. But when I look back it's been a long time since I've had any significant time off for myself. It's basically been since training camp, before my senior year at Wisconsin that I could actually sit back and relax. I had to go through training camp and the football season at Wisconsin. Then we had a bowl game, and then I went out to play in the Hula Bowl. Right after that I went to New Jersey to start training for the draft combine, and even after the combine I was still visiting with teams for the next month before the draft. After the draft, I came down here and did OTAs. I did have a little time off in July, but it's been a long season with 17 games so far, including the preseason. Wow, it's been a long time and it's been a lot of games.
[
](http://store.houstontexans.com/product/index.jsp?productId=1865446&cp=2237490&parentPage=family&clickid=mainnavgeartxt&parentPage=family)After the season, I don't know how long I'm going to hang out in Houston or if I'm going to go home right away. But the first place I'm going to after the season is back home to Naperville, Ill. to just sit back and relax. I probably will go back to Madison for a while, too. I have lots of stuff planned for the offseason, most notably some hard work in the gym so that I can come back next year better than this year and help the team reach the playoffs. At some point in the next few months, though, I've got to visit my sister in Providence, because I've never been out there. Then I'd like to go down to the Super Bowl and see all of those festivities. I've been told to never miss a Super Bowl as long as you're a player, to just go even if you're not going to go to the game. I've got to go down to Vegas at some point with my roomies from Wisconsin. All of that is going to get worked into the offseason at some point. I'll have to keep coming back to Houston and continue to work out on my own. We'll probably start up at the end of March or the beginning of April with offseason workouts.
I have to go do some online Christmas shopping now. I'm a last minute kind of shopper, what can I say?
Take care,
Owen
Entry 1: Welcome to training camp (8/1)
Entry 2: Adjusting to the NFL (8/5)
Entry 3: Getting ready (8/5)
Entry 4: Preseason debut (8/16)
Entry 5: Road trip (8/23)
Entry 6: Changing modes (8/29)
Entry 7: Becoming a starter (9/6)
Entry 8: Appearances and business (9/14)
Entry 9: Cooking 101 (9/21)
Entry 10: Season outlook (9/27)
Entry 11: Different feeling (10/4)
Entry 12: Time off (10/11)
Entry 13: Shifting gears (10/19)
Entry 14: After a win (10/26)
Entry 15: The big picture (11/3)
Entry 16: Owen's world (11/09)
Entry 17: Homecoming (11/16)
Entry 18: Holiday traditions (11/23)
Entry 19: Looking back (12/1)
Entry 20: Loving my job (12/7)
