Texans coach Bill O'Brien called out rookie wideout Jaelen Strong in May for showing up to team headquarters overweight and out of shape.
Two months later, the third-rounder is heading toward camp below his NFL Scouting Combine weight of 217 pounds:
The 6-foot-2 Strong was hampered by a tweaked hamstring during OTAs, but took the field during minicamp to play alongside DeAndre Hopkins, Cecil Shorts and Nate Washington. The Texans drafted the former Arizona State star to contend for a starting gig across from Hopkins, with O'Brien saying in May that the rookie would work exclusively on the outside:
"If you look at the past with our receiver position, it's not always easy for a young guy to jump right in there and learn all the things that we do right away," O'Brien said, per the team's official website. "We're going to leave him in one spot, on the outside for a while and teach him that and watch him get better."
Strong wisely used his time away to shed excess baggage, but rookie wideouts, historically, struggle to set the world on fire in Year 1. It's easy to forget that, of course, after last year's gaggle of wunderkinds hit the ground running. Thankfully, we won't have any problems monitoring Strong's progress once HBO's cameras descend for this year's Hard Knocks carnival in Houston.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast discusses the eight most intriguing training camp battles heading into the season.
