Posted by Will Brinson

Used to be a time (I vaguely recall something about walking miles uphill in the snow) when a man tore an ACL, a man stayed down for more than a couple months. That time is no longer now -- following on heels of Wes Welker's absolutely amazing recovery , Owen Daniels is back as well.

So sayeth the Houston Texans' website , where we find out that Gary Kubiak got the good news from Dr. James Andrews while running practice.

"Owen's been cleared; totally healthy," Kubiak said on Wednesday. "I was out on the practice field during special teams and he called (head athletic trainer Geoff Kaplan) and we talked to Dr. Andrews, and boy, he's fired up. It's great for our team."

Indeed it is -- especially when you consider how nice a morale boost it has to be for a team that just lost rookie Ben Tate for the season.

Daniels, by the way, was on pace for an absolutely monster season in 2009, when he blew out his knee in the eighth game of the year: project his 519 yards, five TDs and 40 receptions across a full season, and you have the makings of a top five tight end season , pretty comfortably.

"He's a fine player," Kubiak said. "He's a good young man. He's what we stand for as a team, and for our players to see what he's been through and then to see how disappointing it was for him to have a setback and now he's still going to be there opening day, (that) just tells you a lot about what he's all about.

"No kid's worked harder to get back."

Welker might have an argument with that, but Daniels' recovery is still pretty darn impressive.

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