After that too-hard-to-see injury Texans receiver Tank Dell suffered 18 months ago in a game against the Kansas City Chiefs, we didn’t know what kind of career the explosive young wideout would have going forward.
If we are being honest, we didn’t know if he would have a future career in football.
But something we have been hearing was building happened last Thursday. It happened again on Friday morning during the Texans’ training camp.
Dell hit the practice field with his teammates. He isn’t practicing at full capacity, and nobody is predicting when he will play in a game this season, but the fact that he has made enough progress is a major miracle.
“It’s nothing short of a blessing,” Dell said moments after bopping into his session on Friday with all the fun and personality we’ve come to know since he starred at UH. “That’s just a testament to all the work that I put in with the staff, on my own, and God first. It’s great.”
Indeed, it is.
We all watched in horror and hurt for the young man, who we have all come to like and appreciate more as a human than as a star football player. Dell tore his ACL, MCL, and LCL while also dislocating his kneecap and suffered serious meniscus damage. His teammate and good friend quarterback C.J. Stroud cried on the field, and we all hurt from the stands, in our homes, and even in the press box.
It didn’t look good.
But after several surgeries, extensive rehab, and a laser focus to return, Dell is back, and you have to believe it’s only a matter of time before he is back out on the field making plays for the Texans. You can tell head coach DeMeco Ryans believes so.
“Tank looks really nice out there. You see him being explosive,” Ryans said. “It’s good to see him in routes when they’re in individual drills. It’s getting back in the swing of not doing things on the side.
“It gets lonely when you’re in the return to football program, and you’re just off to the side working with the trainers. Now to get back in with your guys and actually do football things with football guys, it’s really that big first step into the progression of getting back on the field.”
The good thing about this is nobody is in a rush to get him back on the field until Dell is really ready to come back. The natural question is, will he be ready to go in some capacity come the Texans’ Sept. 13 season opener against the Buffalo Bills?
All you are going to get right now from Dell and the organization is a shrug. That’s the right answer.
“Right now we’re just taking it one day at a time,” Dell said. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel. For sure, I’ll be out there. But we’re just taking it one day at a time. That’s all we’re doing.”
His coach agrees.
“We’re taking our time with Tank, allowing him to come along as he needs to in his time,” said Ryans, whose team opens the preseason this week against the Los Angeles Rams at Reliant Stadium. “He’s doing an outstanding job with it. He looked really nice today; nice and crisp running his route.
“It’s exciting anytime you see Tank on the field. As everybody understands, Tank’s personality, his joy and love for football, you want to see that comeback story come to life. We’re excited to see whenever that happens, we’re all going to be very joyful for him.”
That Dell is out there on the field, contributing alongside his teammates, is a testament to his determination to get back to where he was. Actually, Dell’s plan is to be better than he was when we witnessed him record 1,400 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns in his 25 NFL games before the injury.
“Faith and trust is what I started with. It started with God, putting all my trust and my faith in Him and my belief to get back here. When I got hurt, I wrote the goal down to just be better than what I left off and be better than what I left off that Chiefs’ game.
“When I come back, I want to come back not like this is going to be the same. I want to come back better than where I was. That was never a question in my head.”
