Gary Kubiak and the Houston Texans aren’t throwing caution to the wind with Andre Johnson.
Johnson returned to the field on Monday eight days after suffering a groin injury in practice.
Coach Kubiak said the team will be using its star wide receiver sparingly, at least for now.
“We put a play count on him, so we’re going to do that as the week goes on,” Kubiak said, in comments distributed by the team. ”It’s about getting him going again and not expecting him to go the full bore on the first day out. I thought he held up well, and we’ll move forward tomorrow.”
Photo Credit: HoustonTexans.com
The magic number appears to be 20 for Johnson, who says things went well.
“They just wanted to work me in,” Johnson said. ”I took probably about 20 reps today, but they were kind of mixed in. Sometimes I went in for two or three plays in a row. They did a great job of mixing it up. The practice went fine.”
Coming off the worst year of his career due to injury (just 33 catches for 492 yards and two touchdowns in seven starts), Johnson has collected 706 catches for 9,656 yards and 77 touchdowns in nine seasons.
Kubiak also added that the team will decide on Thursday whether the 6-3, 226-pound wide out will play in Saturday’s preseason opener on the road against the Carolina Panthers.
Beyond the two Johnsons (Andre and Bryant) and Kevin Walter, no other receiver currently on the Texans’ roster has any regular season experience, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if the team rested its former first-round pick (third overall in 2003), five-time Pro Bowler and four-time All-Pro receiver this weekend. Better safe than sorry.
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Michael Gartman is a College Football and NFL Senior Writer, the AFC South and NFC West Lead Writer and the Founder, CEO of GridironGrit.com. He also writes for RantPolitical.com, where he reports on topics across all sides of the political spectrum and analyzes important issues in the liberty movement. Follow @_MichaelGartman, @RantPolitical and @GridironGrit on Twitter!
