While many fans had a long weekend that may have consisted
of barbeque, camping, friends, and family, the Houston Texans were hard at work
preparing for the regular season opener this Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles by making several roster changes.
The Texans trimmed their roster down to 55 men on Friday,
leaving only 2 players that were going to have to be dropped to reach the
maximum 53 player roster for NFL teams.
Those last two individuals were announced on Saturday, when
the Texans placed OT Seth Wand on waivers and put RB Domanick Davis on the
Injured Reserve list. By placing Davis on IR, he will not be eligible to play
for the 2006 season. Starting RB duties have been handed to rookie Wali Lundy.
Wand had played for the Texans since 2003. When Head Coach
Gary Kubiak was asked about the decision to let Wand go, he replied saying “He
made a lot of progress, but he's still got another step he's got to take as a
player… We just felt like the best thing to do for our team right now is use
Ephraim (Salaam) as our swing guy."
On Sunday the Texans announced that they claimed 4 players
off the waiver wire from other teams and released 5 more from their own roster.
The newest Texans are DB Roc Alexander (Denver Broncos), DT
Atiyyah Ellison (Carolina Panthers), Guss Scott (New England Patriots) and WR
Edell Shepherd (Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
The 5 that were released from the team were WR David Anderson, DB Kevin Garrett, DT Robaire Smith, DB Michael Stone, and RB Chris Taylor. With the release of these 5, and the addition of the above 4, the
Texans had 52 men on the roster, one short of the maximum number of 53.
The last person named to the Texans 2006 roster was
announced yesterday. The Texans decided to add veteran running back Ron Dayne
from the Denver Broncos to the team to assist the young corps of ball carriers.
Dayne won the 1999 Heisman Trophy while at the University
of Wisconsin after an amazing collegiate careers where he set numerous NCAA
rushing records. He was drafted in 2000 during the first round (11th
overall) by the New York Giants. While playing in the NFL for the Giants and
then the Broncos, Dayne rushed for 2,337 yards and 17 touchdowns.