Joint practices will bring a change of pace for Houston and Washington

Reading the coverage of the Houston Texans...

Alfred Blue is ready to seize the moment, writes Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle. Blue is suddenly a very integral part of the Texans' backfield now that Arian Foster will miss some time with a significant groin injury. "I'm very confident," Blue said. "It's a great opportunity, so I'm going to seize the moment and make the best of it."

Greg Rosenthal of NFL.com was skeptical of the Texans' offense even before Foster's injury. He's that much more skeptical about it now. He writes: "'The system' in Houston often got too much credit for Foster's early success under coach Gary Kubiak -- 2014 was all Foster. He averaged 4.8 yards-per-carry; the rest of the team was at 3.1."

Washington is ready to welcome the Texans to training camp, writes Mike Jones of The Washington Post. It will bring a change of pace for both teams.

John Harris of HoustonTexans.com offers his very thorough slate of observations from the fourth practice of training camp. This one hints at the crispness of the offense when Brian Hoyer is running it: "Brian Hoyer made some much better throws the second half of practice. I wrote in my notes early in practice “7’s out of synch with these receivers.” But, during team, in particular, a move the chains team drill, he ran the offense like it’s supposed to be run. He had it flying up the field, even to a point where he was back up at the line of scrimmage ready to run a play after a catch took a guy out of bounds. It was a bit chaotic until Coach O’Brien stepped in with some words of, uh, encouragement -- aggressive counseling? -- to get the defense back in line, so to speak."