{"id":685228,"date":"2026-01-17T23:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/685228\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T23:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T23:02:15","slug":"patriots-receive-boost-off-injured-reserve-entering-playoff-matchup-with-texans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/685228\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots Receive Boost Off Injured Reserve Entering Playoff Matchup With Texans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New England Patriots are about as close to being fully healthy as you can be entering their divisional round matchup with the Houston Texans on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>New England announced that cornerback Alex Austin was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patriots.com\/news\/patriots-make-roster-moves-x7336\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">activated off of injured reserve<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Austin, 24, makes his return after being placed on injured reserve with a wrist injury on Nov. 25, and will likely slide right back into his role on four different special teams units where he played 39.1% of the special teams snaps in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Kobee Minor and Charles Woods will likely take a step back, with the former likely to be made inactive moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriots are moving in the right direction with regards to health, as cornerback Christian Gonzalez (concussion) and defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga (foot) being <a href=\"https:\/\/nesn.com\/2026\/01\/patriots-injury-report-vs-texans-has-late-change-to-christian-gonzalezs-status\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">removed from the injury report this week<\/a>, while linebacker Harold Landry III (knee) is expected to be available despite being listed as questionable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nesn-in-content-ad__copy\">Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>New England and Houston will look to punch their ticket to the 2026 AFC Championship Game on Sunday, with kickoff scheduled for 3 p.m. ET at Gillette Stadium.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots are about as close to being fully healthy as you can be entering their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7897,7,221,253,2368,6,222],"class_list":["post-685228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-texans","tag-alex-austin","tag-football","tag-houston","tag-houston-texans","tag-houstontexans","tag-nfl","tag-texans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115912936511161232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}