Rookie diary: James Casey

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.*

It's always kind of weird to have practice on Thanksgiving, but when you're playing in college and the NFL, it's always during football season. After practice, I'm spending the day at home with my wife. We have some friends in town from back home in Azle. My wife and friends are making all kinds of food, so I'm just going to go home and eat a whole bunch. I need to put some weight on, anyway, so that'll be good for me.

I've got a lot to be thankful for this year. A lot of stuff's happened to me, like my wife being pregnant. We went to the doctor Tuesday and got a sonogram and got to see the baby. I think we're going to find out the sex in like 10 days because they can do a blood test now for that, so we're really excited to find that out. But I've got a lot to be thankful for, being in the NFL and doing something I dreamed about when I was a little kid. It's going to be a great Thanksgiving.

I grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, so I remember always watching football and watching the Cowboys on Thanksgiving when I was younger. It's neat and a little different to actually be in the NFL and be able to sit at home and watch NFL football and know that it's guys that I'm playing against or will be playing against down the road.

The Titans game was a really tough loss for us. It was a really big game on Monday night, but we didn't get the job done. There are really no excuses for it, but I know one thing I can guarantee is that we're not going to give up. We're really excited about playing the Colts.

On a personal level, it was good to get out there and contribute and come back from my injury. It was exactly three weeks since my knee surgery, so it was good to get back out there and run around. I felt a lot better with my knee and I got to get a couple catches in, so that was a really cool experience.

{QUOTE}With the loss, it's really tough to enjoy anything, but I'm sure down the road, I'll look back and it will be very memorable to me. I did get a lot of text messages and Facebook messages from people back at home. When you're playing on a national stage like that on Monday night, it's a chance for everybody to watch. A lot of folks from back home saw it, and that was neat.

It's a short week, so we get a chance to get back out there sooner since we played on a Monday night game. We were right back to work on Wednesday. It hurt Tuesday sitting around thinking about it, but once Wednesday comes, you've got to put it behind you, learn from it and just get ready for the Colts.

Everybody knows how good the Colts are. They're 10-0, they're a great team, they've got great players. But we've got good players, too, and we've been in almost every game. So we've just got to come out and try to make a statement and that could put us back on the map and put us back on track.

To everyone reading this, Happy Thanksgiving, and I look forward to everybody coming out against Indianapolis. I really appreciate all the fans that were at the Monday night game. It was a great crowd. It was loud as I've ever heard it in any stadium I've been in, and that definitely helped us out. It hurt not being able to give the fans that win, but we're going to bounce back and play strong against Indianapolis. I'm excited to get back on the field, and I look forward to seeing everybody out there on Sunday.

**