Houston Texans begin 2025 Training Camp

By Elwyn Henderson

The Houston Texans began their 2025 Training Camp at the Methodist Training Center across the street from NRG Stadium in Houston Wednesday morning on a hot 93-degree day.

Prior to the first practice General Manager Nick Caserio met with the media to discuss the opening of camp and began with an opening statement and then he talked about beginning his 25th year in the NFL.

The Mirror asked him what the next step is for the Texans in 2025.

 “Yeah, not really sure what the next step is. We have a good football team so we been one of the best eight teams in the league the last two years. What’s going to happen beyond that, I mean, nobody has any idea. I don’t have any idea. Nobody else has any idea. Anybody that says they do is probably like wrong. So can we put ourselves a position each week to give ourselves an opportunity to win, what the end result is, I mean, we’re focused on the work, the process, and that’s not going to change. So you have to put a significant amount of time and energy and effort into developing your foundation, building your football team up. In the end it’s about what happens on Sunday. So the focus is going to be on the Rams. Anything beyond that, I mean, is a big waste of time. I don’t spend much time on it. DeMeco doesn’t spend much time on it. That’s for you all to talk about outside the building.” 

     At the conclusion of the practice Head Coach DeMeco Ryans met with the media and had high praise for his players after watching the first practice of Training Camp.

“Good to have everybody out. Really excited for the start of molding our team, see what our 2025 Houston Texans will look like. Really good work today. Shorter day. Not much action, but what really impressed me today was just our signal callers. The operation from our quarterback, our middle linebacker, our personal protector on the punt team. Just really impressed for the first day. A lot of times you come out and there are reloads you have to do. You have to do things over. But today was a really clean operation, and that’s a really great start to how we’ve been. So, I’m pleased with where we started today and looking forward to continuing to stack days and continuing to build upon each and every guy we have here.”

Quarterback CJ Stroud was the next person to come up to the podium to discuss the practice. He was asked how he has improved since last year and what his expectations are going into year 3 as the starting quarterback.

“I feel like I’ve grown a lot spiritually, physically and mentally. I’m just grateful to have a coach like [Head Coach] DeMeco [Ryans] who promotes that and family and friends who support me and teammates as well. So, feel like I’ve grown a lot. I just want consistent wins. Not just like on the scoreboard or just on the field, of course that’s very important, but just in life. So, just consistently winning.”

Star Wide Receiver Nico Collins followed Stroud to the podium and as his presser began he was asked about CJ Stroud’s growth, and he responded, “I would say a lot. I feel like C.J. [Stroud] is the same guy he was from day one: Calm, collected leader, the leader he is. That’s what you would expect from your quarterback. But feel like this year he’s on a mission every day to get better. Just like everybody else. I feel can’t get complacent and comfortable in the league. You got to be able to grow. You see it every day on the grass field.”

Defensive start Will Anderson, Jr was the final player to address the media. He was asked what was going to make the defense even better this year and what excited him about this defense.

 

“What’s going to make this defense great is our execution. Of course we have our S.W.A.R.M., that’s who we are. That’s what we’re built to do. But, our execution and how detailed we are going to be is what separates us. The energy that we have. You felt it today. Sometimes we come out everybody has a little nervousness, a little jitters. Today everybody was rolling. The communication was great, everybody was jumping up and down. I am excited to see what we continue to do this training camp and just see how much togetherness we can have going into this season.”

Wednesday was just the beginning of what will be 20 practices during Camp and that will be followed by three preseason games before action begins for the Texans for real on Sunday, September 7th when they travel to Los Angeles to take on the Rams in a 3:25 PM contest.

Even though the team has added free agents and had a great draft many of the pundits expect the team to take a small step back from their previous two 10-7 regular season record, but don’t count this bunch out. They have an excellent head coach in Ryans, a quality franchise quarterback in Stroud and what looks to be a much improved offensive line. IF they can stay healthy they could even eclipse last year’s record and might be able to get to the AFC Championship game. Of course, a lot has to happen in order for that to occur, but it will definitely be a fun season and the Texans will be a very competitive team.