Houston Texans Begin 7 on 7 Drills

After three months of conditioning and working out together at Rice University for the Houston Texans. Matt Schaub stated this morning on Sports Radio 610 CBS Houston, “We’ve picked up on our football stuff here over the last month, starting in the beginning of May and when June hit this week.” Schaub went on to add, “Probably next week what we’ll do, we have more guys coming so we’ll set up a mock practice type setting. Which we’ve been throwing and doing all that but now to have more of the defensive guys out there to do some real live seven on seven, individual drills and pretty much everything that we would do through out practice, OTA’s up until an actual team period.”

The Texans quarterback goes on to explain the seven on seven drills are largely in part to not having enough linemen involved or the extra bodies needed to conduct an actual full on team period.

When asked by Lopez about how close to a real practice setting the workouts are Matt Schaub re-iterated, “We (Texans) aren’t doing much meeting stuff. I have a book that I have in my possession. I just write down forty or fifty plays that are scripted but offensively there are no young guys that we need to teach because none of the rookies are really any offensive players that we had drafted, except for (T.J.) Yates.”

Getting back into a football mindset is key for the Houston Texans. To be able to run an offense with many returning four year plus players should be a huge benefit as the seven on seven drills roll out. Fine tuning route running and having offensive players around one another in order to challenge each individual to a point of excellence seems to be the emphasis within the last week or so.

The Texans QB admits to having thirty-eight players show up Wednesday morning for the player only mock practice sessions. Each week more and more players have been showing up to the player driven practices. This is without question exciting news for Houston Texans fans. The fact that the hometown team is going through many of the motions on the practice field that players would typically be subject to at this current time in the NFL offseason. It’s likely that some may believe that the drills and practices could lead to injury and that would be detrimental to the team especially if the injury happened to occur to a Texans mainstay on either side of the ball. From a biased point of view the actions of the home team can only prove to help the team make a smooth transition back to everyday offseason activities once the NFL Lockout is lifted.

As a fan and as players avoiding injuries will come to mind during the offseason work sessions and Matt Schaub addressed that concern as well, “We can easily get assistance there immediately.”  Schaub said. He (Schaub) also told Sports Radio 610 that the Rice coaching staff has let it be known if anything is needed from the Rice staff in terms of injury assistance they (Rice staff) are but right up the stadium ramps.

With very little of the concern on the offensive side of the ball many eyes of Texas are upon the defensive conversion to the 3-4 and the progress being made at these practices regarding the switch. Matt Schaub hinted that everyone can expect a transition period for many of the guys on defense who have never played in a 3-4 scheme. Many of these players are indeed missing valuable meeting time but linebacker and team captain DeMeco Ryans is doing his part as a leader to assist the guys in learning as much as he does about the system, technique and adjustments that need to be made in certain situations.

It’s definite learning on the fly for the defense at the moment but could prove beneficial for defensive players from the aspect of being able to play instinctively and not have to think so much.

Throughout the interview the Texans star quarterback delves into such things as the bonds that are forged by these type of team setting situations, his hopes of turning the corner by going from a good to a great team and the current secret negotiating meetings being held between the league and the NFLPA*.

Matt Schaub seems to be very optimistic about the way things are currently shaping up and to finally get more of the defensive players to show up. Schaub let’s everyone know that the team has a full set of defensive backs during the seven on sevens so there is no need to fans to worry that it’s merely a offensive exploitation of sorts against players not at all familiar with the play of an NFL quality defensive backfield.

All in all the interview is a solid job by the guys at CBS Houston Sports Radio 610 AM. Vandemeer and Lopez hit on some key points and Schaub informs the listeners about the everyday format of the player led drills that your Houston Texans as a team are laying out. One point that would have been great to find out would have been finding out if any of this years rookies have actually shown up to participate in team drills. With the defense already behind the eight ball in terms of installation of Wade Phillips’ 3-4 system it seems that having them show up would be beneficial to all parties involved.

You can check out the interview by clicking on the link. Be sure to find us on Facebook and you can follow us on twitter @ToroTimes.