At halftime of their game with the Dolphins on Saturday, the Texans said that wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins suffered a head injury in the first half and that he would be evaluated for a concussion.
The evaluations have been completed and that is indeed the diagnosis for the Texans’ first-round pick. Coach Gary Kubiak said that Hopkins was stumbling and not acting like himself after taking a blow to the head in the first half, which is why he told wide receivers coach Larry Kirksey to remove Hopkins from the game.
“He got a concussion,” Kubiak said, via the team’s website. “I don’t know exactly what play it happened on, but I thought something was wrong. He seemed a bit woozy. I told Larry to get him out of there and then we checked him out. He’s fine now, he’s doing fine, but we’re obviously going to put him through the protocol. I think it happened on the first or second ball that he caught in the game, I think.”
Past experience tells us that it’s useless to talk about return timelines in the wake of concussions because every one is different and every player responds to them differently. The diagnosis would seem to put Hopkins’ availability for next Sunday’s game with the Saints at risk, if not the remainder of the preseason. Assuming he recovers in time for the start of the regular season, Hopkins should still wind up as the No. 2 wideout in Houston after Andre Johnson.