J.J. Watt is back at practice, excited to help his team in the playoffs, and his teammates are equally stoked. However, the Houston Texans don’t have a timetable for when they are going to place the defensive end back on the active roster.
Coach Bill O’Brien says the club still has to evaluate where the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year is with his recovery from a torn pectoral muscle on Oct. 27 before they can place him back on the active roster.
“I don’t know that yet,” O’Brien told reporters Monday. “We’ll have to see how he’s doing today, tomorrow. We’ll continue to kind of evaluate that. Then, obviously, we’ll let you know, but I’m not sure about that yet.”
The key thing the staff is looking for when it comes to evaluating Watt is how much his workload can increase.
“Just continuing to build,” O’Brien explained. “Just continuing to build on what he did last week, rep-wise and some of the things you would have to do relative to what his injury was. Just continuing to evaluate that with him, in conjunction with him. See how he’s feeling and things like that.”
The Texans host the Buffalo Bills at 3:35 p.m. CT Saturday at NRG Stadium in the first wild-card game of the weekend. Houston could use Watt’s pass rushing presence as the club finished with 31, tied with the Cincinnati Bengals for the sixth-fewest in the league. Watt produced 4.0 sacks before his injury in the Week 8 win over the Oakland Raiders.