Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said after Saturday’s loss to the Chiefs that Tank Dell suffered a “significant” knee injury and will stay at a Kansas City hospital overnight for further evaluation.
“We’ll get an update tomorrow on him,” Ryans said in his postgame press conference. “But just all our thoughts and prayers are with Tank right now. You guys have seen what he means to our entire team. It hurt. It hurts to see him go down like that. He was having a fantastic game, playing really well for us. He was in a really great spot. And we just want to keep him in our thoughts and prayers right now.”
Dell suffered the injury while making a 30-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter. The team was visibly emotional seeing Dell’s injury on the field, particularly quarterback C.J. Stroud. Dell had his entire left leg placed in a vacuum splint before he departed on an ambulance cart.
Ryans noted the first thing he spoke to the team about after the game was an update on Dell.
“My first thing was opening it up about Tank and letting them know the update and his status because we’re a family. We’re going to stay together,” Ryans said. “And Tank means so much to our entire football team — outside of playing, just the person and the man. He means a lot to us. That’s the first thing I talked to our team about. That’s bigger than football right now. We see our brother down, hurt in that manner — that’s what’s most important to us.”
Despite exiting the game in the third quarter, Dell ended the contest as Houston’s leading receiver with 98 yards on six catches with a TD.
“Losing Tank, we lost one of our most explosive players,” Ryans said. “He made a lot of big plays for us today and we lost that. So, everybody around him has to pick it up. Someone has to step up and make plays in that moment. And I think it’s difficult to defend when you have Nico and Tank out there. So, of course that changed things for us offensively.”
But as Ryans noted, the team must move forward.
“We can’t hang our head and sulk about it,” Ryans said. “We play on Wednesday. We’ve got to go out, prepare to get going on Wednesday. We have the Ravens coming in, so another playoff team coming into our house. We’ll see where we are.”
