Kamu Grugier-Hill understands the importance of the final preseason game.
The Houston Texans linebacker is entering his seventh season and knows that the Aug. 25 tilt against the San Francisco 49ers at NRG Stadium is the team’s last chance to hone in on details before the marathon of the regular season commences Sept. 11.
“This game is just a good game to get everything fine-tuned,” Grugier-Hill told reporters Tuesday at Houston Methodist Training Center. “We’ve been working hard all preseason just trying to get all the guys in there and working together. It will be pretty important.”
The last preseason game is also consequential for rookies it will be the final time they are able to see the field without their trial-and-error approach to the pro game affecting the team’s status in the win column.
Grugier-Hill is familiar with what the rookies are feeling as they gear up for the 49ers. Although Grugier-Hill was a sixth-round pick for the New England Patriots in 2016, he did not make the team.
“For me, being a lower drafted guy and someone that was waived and then picked up, I relate a lot to those guys that are trying to make the team,” said Grugier-Hill.
The former Eastern Illinois linebacker did catch on with the Philadelphia Eagles, where he played through the 2019 season, logging 54 games, and winning a Super Bowl at the end of the 2017 campaign — incidentally, over the team that cut him, the Patriots.
The final preseason game, to Grugier-Hill, is about, “just letting it loose and not having any regrets” as a rookie.
Said Grugier-Hill: “Just letting them know that they’ve been putting in the hard work and to keep dominating.”
