Countdown to kickoff, preseason edition: Houston Texans at New England Patriots

There’s only so much you can glean about a team during training camp. You can follow along the reporters at the scene and be encouraged by the positive news coming from Kirby Drive. You can read in newspapers or your favorite blog (that’s us, I hope) about the team’s progress. But at a certain point, the Houston Texans have to get on the field and line up against a whole other team and put all that positive coverage (whether it’s warranted or not) to the test.

So here we are, once again, to watch our favorite football team, and see the results for ourselves.

Tonight we get to see C.J. Stroud and Will Anderson get (limited) snaps early in the game. We get to see what strides our wide receiver corps has made. Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing what magic, if any, Tank Dell has in store for us tonight.

We get to see a glimpse, albeit a limited one, of the newly reconstituted Texans defense and the head coaching “debut” of our own DeMeco Ryans.

And we get to hold our collective breath and hope like hell that nobody wearing battle red gets hurt. As for the other team, well, that’s their problem.

It may be preseason football, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything compelling to watch in tonight’s game.

And luckily, it will be on NFL Network live for once so everyone will get to see what the Texans could be this year. Or not, they could play it close to the vest. But from the reports I’ve read, the starters will get about the first 10-15 snaps of the game.

Welcome back to Texans football...technically.