Backpedaling crisply and reversing direction, Texans rookie cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. didn't appear to have any issues with his mobility or discomfort during an organized team activity.
The Texans are proceeding cautiously, though, with the first-round draft pick from LSU and limited his workload to individual drills Tuesday morning.
That's because Stingley Jr. had a Lisfranc foot injury last fall and underwent surgery.
Several players didn't practice, including starting defensive end Jon Greenard, who had offseason foot surgery and safety Eric Murray, who had shoulder surgery, along with linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill, who had knee surgery, rookie wide receiver John Metchie III, who is making steady progress after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament in the Southeastern Conference championship game for Alabama, rookie tight end Teagan Quitoriano, defensive tackle Michael Dwumfour and offensive tackle Cedric Ogbuehi.
The goal for Stingley?
“To get him better each day," Texans coach Lovie Smith said. "Coming in, we know he’s coming off a major injury, so for Derek and some of our other players, you can see we have quite a few guys that are out right now. Some are getting no reps, some are getting a limited amount of reps."
Quitoriano was walking around at practice and kept stretching out his quadriceps.
“Yes, if there’s a rookie that’s not out there doing anything, he has something maybe minor as much as anything," Smith said. "We don’t have many guys that are out completely. Jonathan Greenard and a few of our other players, Eric Murray, you see some of the guys had offseason surgeries and you probably won’t see them until training camp, but everybody’s right on schedule being able to do something.”
Two of the Texans' best players didn't attend the voluntary workout: Pro Bowl left offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil and defensive tackle Maliek Collins.
Smith emphasized that he's pleased with the attendance at the workouts.
Tunsil has attended previous offseason workouts while doing the majority of his training in Lynchburg, Va. with his college strength coach.
“At Big Sandy, voluntary is voluntary," Lovie Smith said. "You can show up as you like, you don’t have to. I kind of go on that in the end. Yeah, I’d like for guys to be up here all day, staying with the coaches and putting in as many hours as we like, but they have some options. Rules are in place, we follow the rules and it’s no more than that.
"Every player that’s not here right now, I’ve communicated with them and I’m okay with that. Eventually, we’ll have everyone here. There’s one thing that’s mandatory in the offseason, and I expect everyone would be there unless we’ve come to an agreement and they have something that I want them to take care of, too.”
Texans veteran wide receiver Brandin Cooks, the leading receiver on the team last season and the recipient of a two-year, $39.6 million contract extension in April, attended the workout.
Attendance has been extremely high during the offseason workout program.
“No one was satisfied with what happened last year," Smith said. "How do you get better? Come to work every time you have an opportunity to get better. You show up, some more than others. It’s not like we’re going to make Brandin Cooks get every snap. We have some of our veteran players that I’m going to take some of their reps off a little bit. When you have as much competition as we have, you don’t have to tell guys to show up. They want every opportunity they can to show us who they are. ..
"Offseason work is just invaluable on what we can get done out here. For the most part, we have most of our football team here, which has been the case throughout the offseason for these voluntary workouts. Everything we’ve been doing, phase one, phase two, has been leading up to our NFL version of spring ball."
Aaron Wilson is a Pro Football Network reporter and analyst and a contributor to Sports Talk 790.