Houston Texans Training Camp Notes: Week Three

Another week is in the book at Texans’ training camp, and with it comes the end of their time in West Virginia. Let’s take a dive into the notebooks of the folks who were there before they had back on home to TEXAS.

Marcus Gilchrist Making Moves:

While he may only be a recent addition to the Texans roster, Gilchrist has been making moves to secure one of the starting safety spots on the roster. Both Seth Payne and Mike Meltser had glowing reviews of Gilchrist this week. Meltser in particular was quite bullish about Gilchrist chances of starting for the Texans by stating that:

Judging by today’s practice, Marcus Gilchrist has a solid chance to start at the safety spot opposite Andre Hal. He seemed to hold up fairly decently, specifically stuffing the run. I’ll be curious to see how much he plays in the preseason.

Payne didn’t quite echo these sentiments but was efffusive with his praise of Gilchrist:

One question I found myself asking several times this morning was, “Who the hell is #40?” Turns out #40 is the newly acquired safety, Marcus Gilchrist. Gilchrist showed up with a few impressive pass break ups, and I noticed him filling fast and hard against the run.

The Texans safety position has been one of their most discussed issues over the past few seasons. Houston has lacked a true run enforcer at the position. Hopefully these reviews of Gilchrist are a sign of what’s to come for this season at the safety position.

Julien Davenport Developing:

With Duane Brown still sitting out in search of a new contract, it’s opened up room for others on the Texans’ offensive line to get some valuable playing time with the first team. One such individual is the Texans 2017 fourth round pick Juli’en Davenport. While the reports haven’t quite been glowing of Davenport, he is getting a lot of work as John Harris notes:

Rookie tackle Julien Davenport must have had a thousand reps at tackle in pass rush 1-on-1s. Every time I looked over there, he was in on the action. Left side or right, he’d get one rep on one side and then one on the other. He won his fair share of reps, even though defensive end Geneo Grissom won one against him early in the day.

Davenport has a long way to go for sure, and in all likelihood he won’t see the field for the Texans this season unless something happens to Chris Clark or Duane Brown, but it is good to see that he’s at least getting the opportunity to develop with Brown on the sideline.

Zach Cunningham Getting Comfortable:

Cunningham had a impressive debut against the Panthers last week and has looked to build upon that strong performance this week in training camp. Harris in particular noted Cunningham’s increased level of play over the course of the week:

Rookie linebacker Zach Cunningham led the team in tackles last Wednesday night and it seems as if that game cracked the code on his confidence, a bit. I started seeing him get more and more comfortable with the defensive scheme last week and he’s carried that forward into the game and practices the past few days. I’m not sure that a running back had one win against him in pass rush one-on-ones.

Cunningham is going to have a lot more chances to build upon his opening game performance as he is going to be line to get a lot of the snaps with the back ups over the next few weeks.

That’s going to be all for now folks. The Texans are flying back to Houston for the game against the Patriots tomorrow before continuing the rest of training camp in Houston.