Texans had COVID-19 scare shortly before kickoff

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The Texans had a COVID-19 scare shortly before kickoff Sunday, Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle reports.

Starting safety Eric Murray tested positive for the coronavirus Sunday. The team placed him on the COVID-19 reserve list and elevated cornerback Anthony Chesley from the practice squad as a replacement.

But contact tracing left the availability of cornerback Vernon Hargreaves, inside linebacker Tyrell Adams and safety Lonnie Johnson Jr. in doubt. They did not participate in warmup drills but were cleared right before kickoff, per Wilson.

“Well, any time you lose a starter at this point, at the point in the game where we lost him, that’s difficult because you’ve got to figure out who goes to replace him and all of those kind of things, and so you have to move pieces around,” Texans interim coach Romeo Crennel said. “Then the guys who had to wait on contact tracing, I think that that impacted their mentality to a degree, but they still got there and lined up and tried to play the game.”

Whitney Mercilus went on the reserve-COVID-19 list after he tested positive Friday.