The Garth Brooks tour has been setting up at NRG Stadium and he'll undoubtedly play The Dance.
Outside, the dance of Texans Camp continued with another padded practice under bliss-giving overcast skies.
Someone told me it was the weekend. It's a good thing because I was ready to jump on the air for another live radio show then remembered that I'm available to roam and get to know the team even better.
This roster will be pared down in the next few weeks but right now there are enough players to field two teams. And I need to know them all. Preseason games are coming and every healthy player is likely to get time.
While we're on the subject, you should use these games as a way to see who might stand out when we get into the second half. These are the players who are often called upon to help the cause as the season progresses.
This is usually when I do my annual telling of the 'Young Case Keenum started preseason game four on a squad with two QBs who had engineered playoff victories here and he ended up having to start eight games' story. But I won't do that.
One of the good things about today's NFL is Nick Caserio gets a 16 player practice squad to operate, including six vets with no experience time restrictions. That makes roster cuts a little easier, knowing you can potentially bring a lot of people back.
When the Texans began play 20 years ago practice squads were capped at five players before gradually increasing in size.
The other helpful development for GMs around the league is injured reserve restrictions being relaxed. Now a player can come back after four games. In the first decade of the Texans, he was out for the season.
This flexibility is great for players' employment opportunities and teams' continuity. Caserio often talks about having almost '70 players' available to work with after the roster must get cut to 53.
Anyway, no live radio means that during the special teams sessions I walk around the facility and interact with fans. John Harris hates when I talk about using the special teams portion of camp days to talk with people, catch up on my reading or plan my 2022 tax return, but I believe in time management.
The good vibes in the city and in NRG Park are hard not to notice. Cal and Hannah McNair have been meeting and greeting fans in the stands and giving away shirts. I've never seen that before. It's so appreciated by the H-Town faithful.
There's another session Sunday before an off day Monday. Then we get into game week mode and it all goes very fast. In fact, once we get to Game Day on August 13, the entire Texans preseason will be over in 13 days.
That's because the Texans finish up on a Thursday night in Amazon's TNF premiere. I'll have a lot more on that later. Al Michaels will be in the building and that's always fun.
I'd say I can't wait for Gameday, and that's true, but I have more studying to do and really enjoy the process of memorizing info about the 2022 squad. And I promise that I'll be ready to call all the special teams action too.
Be sure to check out the Texans All Access: Texans Camp Special Sunday night at 11 on ABC-13. And not because I'm on it (okay, that's ONE of the reasons you should check it out). It's got Lovie Smith, Nick Caserio, Justin Britt Mic'd Up, John Harris, Drew Dougherty, Deepi Sidhu and a whole lot more. I'll be back on Sports Radio 610 at 8 am Monday to talk about all of it.
