In a football crazed city, there is always a vibe this time of year, with the advent of training camp each July, where it feels like “football is back!”  I know people will argue that we, in media, make too much of training camp, but this is where a team is built, storylines are formed, and the seeds get planted for whatever the upcoming season is going to look like.

I’ve been covering the Houston Texans since 2007, and I’ve been part of their flagship radio station and coverage on game day since 2014. In that time, we’ve had some memorable and historic training camps. Here are my five most memorable — for good AND bad reasons —  Houston Texans training camps in my time covering the team, each with their own alliterative nickname:

5 (tie). 2017 and 2018, CAMP COUNTRYSIDE
These were the two Texans training camps that took place at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. These were glorious training camps to cover in person, largely because it was a chance to spend a week in temperatures below the 168 degrees that it felt like back in Houston. The drive from Charlotte to the resort was beautiful, and we even saw bears in the backyard of our Airbnb! As for the camp itself, these were Deshaun Watson’s first two camps as a pro, which was highly compelling, and the intimate setting, with practically no outside human beings around practice, meant we could hear every cuss word from coach to player (which was bad news for Jadeveon Clowney, coached by Mike Vrabel).

4. 2021, CAMP CULLEY
Four years later, this training camp feels like a fever dream. This was the one training camp conducted under the watchful eye of the completely overwhelmed David Culley. It was the first camp in seven years that didn’t involve Bill O’Brien, and the first camp since 2022 that didn’t include either Andre Johnson or J.J. Watt. Perhaps the weirdest part of all was the inclusion of Deshaun Watson, who had requested a trade months earlier, but was being sued by 24 women for sexual misconduct. The visuals of Watson at camp, playing walk-thru safety in drills, and eventually getting truculent with the media for filming him every day, were wild.

3. 2023, CAMP CAP
This was the first training camp brimming with optimism and positive energy since Watson’s second Greenbrier camp in 2018, all because of the return of “Cap” (DeMeco Ryans’ nickname) as the head coach. Whereas you couldn’t pay people to go to Camp Culley (or Camp Lovie Smith), the crowds were piling back in to see Ryans’ product. This was also the debut of rookie C.J. Stroud at quarterback (and the endless “Is he your starting QB?” questions to Ryans. Also, I remember the revelation that was Tank Dell, and that makes me sad to think of his gruesome knee injury last December in Kansas City. Let’s move along.

2. 2020, CAMP COVID
This was like nothing I’d ever experienced in my radio career, and I hope to never experience it ever again. This was the training camp during the summer of 2020, right smack dab in the middle of the pandemic. The NFL, in somewhat controversial fashion to some, decided to trudge forward with the 2020 season. Each NFL team would only allow about a dozen media members to attend practice. I was one of the dozen. I will never forget getting COVID tested in a trailer outside the stadium on a daily basis, some days standing in line with players to get tested. From a football standpoint, that was the first camp after the DeAndre Hopkins trade, but I think we were all so happy to have football, that we forgot what a disaster that trade was. The season ended up being a catastrophe, where an 0-4 start led to Bill O’Brien’s firing, Jack Easterby gaining more power, and the team winning 11 games over the next three seasons.

1. 2015, CAMP CURSE WORD
This trading camp was amazing! The second season under BIll O’Brien saw NFL Films, HBO, and Hard Knocks come to town to cover the Texans in the most immersive fashion possible. It was pure gold for anyone on the radio or television or written word, from a content standpoint, and Bill O’Brien was probably at his peak approval rating during the four week tenure of the show, as his dog-cussing, players’ coach ways were on full display. Eventually, he became less of a players’ coach and never cut back on the cussing. I would welcome the cameras back to the Methodist Training Center any time!

Listen to Sean Pendergast on SportsRadio 610 from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekdays. Also, follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/SeanTPendergast, on Instagram at instagram.com/sean.pendergast, and like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SeanTPendergast.