Woody Marks Camp Update — August 31: One of Three Backs on the Roster
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Woody Marks is on Houston's initial fifty-three as one of three running backs, with four backs waived behind him at the deadline. The week produced no charted Marks carries — most starters were rested for the finale — so the roster spot is the news.
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Woody Marks made the team, and the room around him got small. Houston's announced roster carries three running backs — David Montgomery, Marks, and British Brooks, per the club's official roster page — after Noah Whittington, Jawhar Jordan, Deuce Vaughn, and Owen Wright were waived Sunday, per the club's transaction report. Whittington and Jordan are expected back on the practice squad, per Jonathan M. Alexander at the Houston Chronicle, and the club made no waiver claims, so the bodies pressing Marks from below now press from a level down.
His own week left nothing to chart, though it did leave him a line. The writeup of Wednesday's joint practice in Charlotte describes passing plays only, and Marks appears in it not as a runner but as a voice — telling team analyst John Harris why beating another club's defense counts for more than beating your own. "We face our defense every day," Marks told him. "They know your calls. They know your adjustments. They've seen that play 20,000 times in practice." That is per Marc Vandermeer at HoustonTexans dot com. Most starters were rested for Friday's 16 to 13 finale loss in Carolina, per Jared Koch at Texans On SI. Last week's watch item pointed at the third-down and two-minute packages — the job June said was his path — and this window's reporting never showed them; no practice charting on the backfield surfaced, which is a gap in what got written, not evidence of anything. The other half of the watch item, how many backs Houston keeps behind the tandem, is settled: one.
For anyone just joining the thread: the June read on Marks was that the passing-down connection with C.J. Stroud was the half of this backfield worth having, and last week's episode carried the receipts — a 20-yard touchdown run against the Raiders and a touchdown catch from Stroud in that week's joint practice, both per Koch. This week adds no tape, but it adds certainty. He enters September as half of a two-man tandem with one back behind it, and the September question is no longer whether he has a role — it is how big the role runs. More when the season starts answering.
_Data via nflverse._
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