The NFL announced Thursday evening that the Texans' Week 2 game versus the Baltimore Ravens will be played Monday.
Here is the official statement from the league:
"Due to the importance of allowing the Houston area to focus on its recovery from the expected arrival of Hurricane Ike on Friday, the Houston Texans' home game Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens has been rescheduled for Monday night at Reliant Stadium at 7:30 p.m. Houston time (8:30 p.m. ET). The game originally was scheduled to be played on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 3:15 p.m. Houston time (4:15 p.m. ET).
"The Texans-Ravens Monday night game will be televised on local CBS stations in the primary and secondary markets of the Texans (Houston, Beaumont-Port Arthur, and Bryan, Texas) and the Ravens (Baltimore; Washington, DC; Salisbury, MD; and Harrisburg, PA)."
Earlier Thursday, Texans players reacted to the incoming storm that has prompted mandatory evacuations in low-lying areas near Galveston.
Tight end Owen Daniels, who has aspirations of being a meteorologist once his playing days are over, will be closely following the hurricane coverage.
{QUOTE}"I have never been in one before," he said. "I'm interested to see what it might be like. I know it's going to be bad if it comes through. I'm smart enough to know that since I have a little background in meteorology. The way it looks right now, we're on the bad side of things, the wrong side of the storm. I don't know if some of the other guys realize how bad it might get."
Center Chris Myers has a pretty good idea. He lived through Hurricane Andrew, which swept through South Florida in 1992 and left a trail of devastation.
"I was about 11 years old, batting down the hatches," Myers said. "Back then, you didn't have shutters and all that stuff. You just had little plywood boards to put on your window and you went from there. But yeah, it was rough and nasty.
"I had all the family there. Everyone came over to the house. But you learn to live with it. After going through a Category 5 hurricane anything else is kind of, you know, nothing after that. So I'm kind of working with it right now and we're trying to work through practice, but we are focused on Baltimore right now."
Concentrating on the Ravens with Hurricane Ike heading to Houston is not easy.
"You have to be kind of focused all the time and be somewhat resilient-minded to be a football player because there are always things going on, and at the end of the day you have to do your job," guard Chester Pitts said. "If you don't do your job, you'll get somebody killed. You really have to focus on that, and that always comes first."
Daniels and Pitts both are confident that Houston is far enough inland to avoid the brunt of Hurricane Ike's force.
"I would say (I'm) more fascinated and interested to know what it's actually like or what it looks like or what it feels like than scared by what is going to happen," Daniels said. "I think if we were out closer to the gulf, I would be a little more scared."
"After (Hurricane) Rita, it's hard for me to buy into it," Pitts said, referring to the last major hurricane to impact Houston in 2005. "I know so much more now about hurricanes than I once did. But to be 50, 60, 70 miles inland - for a storm to really come through and really knock over homes and buildings, it would have to be something special, not something that just a run-of-the-mill hurricane would do. So I expect once it hits land to kind of dissipate, not be such a big deal, get a bunch of rain. But we'll see. You just never know."
