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Yesterday, the Houston Texans released 11 players to drop their roster down from 89 to 78, since defensive end Antonio Smith does not count against the roster while he is serving his three-game suspension. Houston woke up still needing to make three roster moves to get in compliance with the NFL's mandated 75-man roster limit. Now, we know which three Texans had their 53-man dreams ended this year.
Texans make three more moves placing DE David Hunter and receivers Mike Smith and Alec Lemon on IR.
— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) August 27, 2013
Hunter, Mike Smith, Lemon have been waived / injured. #texans
— James Palmer (@JPalmerCSN) August 27, 2013
The key note here is that waived/injured means that those players can be claimed by other teams. If they remain unclaimed, Hunter and Smith revert to Houston's injured reserve list as tried-and-true Gary Kubiak IR stashes. ESPN's Tania Ganguli reports that Lemon was directly placed on the injured reserve list.
Hunter and Lemon are more noteworthy names here because both had earned some chatter about competing for the 53-man roster. Still, Hunter would have been buried behind Terrell McClain, Tim Jamison, and Jared Crick as top reserves on the defensive line. Alec Lemon's chances took a hit when DeVier Posey came off the physically unable to perform list.
The Texans now sit at 75 players on the roster as they head towards Thursday night's game against the Dallas Cowboys. After that, the Texans will once again have to trim down to 53 by Saturday afternoon and will then be able to fill out the eight-man practice squad.
Surprised by the IR stashes, BRBers?