The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the Houston Texans in Week Four and with that game still almost two months away at this point, it will be interesting to see who plays right tackle for the home team.
According to Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network on Monday, Texans starting right tackle Tytus Howard recently suffered a broken hand and had surgery to repair it.
Texans head coach DeMeco Ryan has now said that Howard will be out for awhile.
With Howard sidelined, it sounds like Texans offensive linemen George Fant, Tyler Beach and Austin Deculus are all getting reps at right tackle with the first-team offense. None of those three players are obviously the quality of right tackle that Howard is. Fant is probably the most experienced of the lot as he has 60 career NFL starts. The Texans signed him to their offseason roster at the end of July.
The right tackle is obviously the player that Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt faces the most during games so it will be interesting to see if Howard can recover from his hand injury by Week Four of the regular season.
The Texans had already lost center Scott Quessenberry this summer to a knee injury, and that means rookie Juice Scruggs is now likely to be the team’s Week One starter at that position.
UPDATE (3:31 PM): ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweets Howard is expected to miss 4-6 weeks but has a chance to play in the Texans’ regular season opener Week One. Barring setbacks, it seems like he’ll be available for the Steelers game.
