Hard Knocks - Houston Texans, Ep. 05: Preview

Tonight is the season finale for "Hard Knocks." As a Texans fan, the last five (5) Tuesday nights have been tremendously enjoyable; we've gotten to see things and sides of personalities we'd never see otherwise. While I'm sure the Texans won't be racing to sign up for a second season anytime soon, the team seems to have received a very positive reception nationally from the experience.

The teaser for this evening's season finale features true American heroes squaring off. You knew that World Cup Champion (and Houston Dash player) Carli Lloyd visited Texans practice last week. What you probably didn't know until now was that, at Bill O'Brien's urging, she had a field goal kicking competition against Vince Wilfork. It's about as phenomenal as you thought it would be. I have yet to find the video in a format that allows it to be embedded, so you'll have to watch it here on the team's official site.

In addition to Wilfork putting Randy Bullock on notice, we'll surely see the coaching staff agonizing over the final cutdown of the roster to 53, along with the likely emotional reactions of the players on both sides of that equation. I'm betting Kourtnei Brown and Charles James, two players who had prominent roles on the show this season but ultimately didn't make the Texans' 53-man roster, will get a good deal of camera time. Perhaps we'll even get some insight into how close Keshawn Martin came to coming up on the wrong side of the list.

Remember that the fifth and final episode of "Hard Knocks: Training Camp With The Houston Texans" premieres tonight at 9 p.m. CDT on HBO.

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