(SportsRadio 610) - The Texans (0-2) will be without their pro-bowl left tackle Laremy Tunsil when they take on the Jaguars (1-1) in a divisional showdown Sunday afternoon in Jacksonville.
A limited participant in practice all week, Tunsil has been dealing with a knee injury, though it has not been disclosed when he might’ve suffered the injury, whether it be in practice or one of the teams first two games.
Not exactly emitting confidence in hopes of Tunsil being ready for the game, Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans alluded to it being somewhat of a touch-and-go situation with his all-world left tackle.
“We’ll see how Laremy does,” Ryans said. “He went through practice this week, but we’ll see how it goes.”
And now we know. It went like it’s been going for the Texans on the injury front, one step forward, two steps back.
Ryans, caused some confusion earlier in the week, on Monday, when answering a question regarding Tunsil’s injury status.
“Yeah, we’ll see where Laremy is with his knees,” Ryans said. “We’ll see how that goes throughout the week, it’s still a day-to-day process.”
The first-year head coach using the plural form of ‘knee,’ raised plenty eyebrows and more concern regarding the severity of Tunsil’s injury status.
Asked to clarify on Wednesday, Ryans intimated that in fact it was just a ‘knee’ Tunsil was dealing with and implied the injury was on the mend and could possibly be behind him by weeks end.
“Yeah, he had an issue with the knee,” Ryans said. “He got it fixed and has been getting treatment around the clock. He’s been on it – getting himself ready to go and we’ll see how he feels as the week progresses.”
NFL insider, Aaron Wilson is reporting that Tunsil is experiencing stiffness and pain in his joint.
Tunsil will miss his second straight game for just the second time in his career and first since he missed the final 12 weeks of the 2021 season.
The Texans projected starting OL for Sunday:
LT: Josh Jones
LG: Kendrick Green
C: Jarrett Patterson
RG: Shaq Mason
RT: George Fant
Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik acknowledged the lack of continuity on the offensive line has been a big factor in a sputtering offense, their non-existent run game and has hindered how they’d like to call the offense.
“We can still go play, we can still function, but what we’re doing and how we function might need to change a little bit,” Slowik said. “We might need to adjust the scheme a little bit to put some guys in some better positions that maybe we hadn’t talked about to scheme in a while, because it fits our left tackle more than it fits Tunsil, and just things of that nature that we always work through as a coaching staff.”
He’ll have his hands full once again Sunday, hoping that this weeks version of a piecemeal offensive line can better protect rookie quarterback CJ Stroud and establish some semblance of a run game for Dameon Pierce and company.