The New Orleans Saints made headlines last week for their efforts to create their own bubble for training camp amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to coach and general manager Bill O’Brien, the Houston Texans actually have their own team hotel, though they are not attempting to create a bubble environment as the Saints are.
“We took everything into account, but I think what we did was we followed the protocols that were sent to us to a T,” O’Brien told reporters on Aug. 6. “In those protocols, they talked about hotels and how you cannot require anybody to stay in a hotel. I know what those teams are doing. They’re not requiring anybody, they’re just making it available. That may be something that we do down the road.
“We’ve made our hotel, where we’re staying, we’ve made it available if a veteran wants to stay in there, if a rookie wants to stay in there. But nobody can be required to stay in the hotel, so I think that’s the key.”
For O’Brien, a contributing factor involves the decisions the players make each day while away from the facility.
“Then the big key for all of us is when we leave the building doing a good job of paying attention to wearing a mask, washing our hands and making sure we do as good of a job as we can to keep the virus out of the building,” said O’Brien.
As of Aug. 8’s transactions report, the Texans did not have one player test positive for COVID-19. Houston also had one player opt out in defensive tackle Eddie Vanderdoes.
[vertical-gallery id=52256]