It’s the start of Phase Three of the Texans’ offseason program, which began on April 16. The Texans will have 10 OTAs over a three-week period: May 21-22 and May 24, May 29-31 and June 4-7. They will have a mandatory three-day mini-camp June 12-14.

Monday’s practice begins at 10:45 a.m. The rest of the practices begin at 10:05 and last until 11:35.

Per league rules, coaches are allowed to be on the field with players during OTAs. Live contact and one-on-one offense vs. defense drills are not permitted. Non-contact special teams drills and team offense vs. team defense drills are permitted. This is the first time players can wear helmets on the field during the offseason, although no shoulder pads or shells are permitted until training camp.

Each of the 90-minute OTAs will be open to the media, so we’ll have extensive coverage of the workouts on HoustonTexans.com.

The offseason program is voluntary, but Texans strength and conditioning coach Cedric Smith said Thursday that there was “great participation” – 100 percent of players took part in the workouts at Reliant Stadium.

“We’ve had a few guys have to miss a few days here and there for one thing or another, but they’ve had opportunities to make those days up, so we’ve had great attendance and are really proud of that,” Smith said. “I think there’s a huge commitment and accountability factor that comes into play with our leaders and with our players to each other, realizing that it is that important for them to be here working with their teammates during this time of year.”

The offseason program started on April 16. “Phase 1” was two weeks of players working out with Smith and his staff. In “Phase 2,” which concluded this week, players continued to work with Smith and did limited work on the field and in the film room with the rest of the Texans’ coaches.

“Very positive overall,” Smith said of the workouts. “I have been pleased. My staff’s been pleased, Matt Schiotz and Derik Keyes. I think the guys came in with a great attitude. There’s a great vibe; there’s a great kind of sense of remnant of what was left over from last year that’s kind of been the catalyst for us to be in the right mindset right now. I like where we are training-wise as a team as well. We’re able to notice and see guys that have made some increases and developed over the last five weeks and progressed kind of into what we wanted to be as far as going into the OTAs.”

The Texans’ rookies, among them eight draft picks and 21 undrafted free agents, reported to Reliant Stadium on Sunday. They began working out with the rest of the team on Monday.

“I am pleased with them,” Smith said. “I think our front office, our scouts and coaches and everybody, they did a great job of bringing in some great individual guys, some guys that are committed to training, committed to hard work and understanding that there’s a process. These guys are starting to understand and get the expectation that everybody else has of them of our team. It’s been great to get these guys in, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to work with ‘em and watch ‘em grow.”

After watching what he described as highly competitive workouts for the last five weeks and seeing the progress made by the players, Smith is eager to see how it all translates to the field in OTAs.

“(I’m) real excited, because that’s kind of the whole basis for our program is,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s about them being able to practice and play football at a high level. That’s the way we train. That’s what we train for. We train for that type of success. We train with the expectation that we’re going to be great on the field and great on Sundays. I’m excited to look and see what we’ve got and how well things will continue to translate over.”

All eight 2012 draft picks and 21 undrafted free agents joined the team in the weight room and on the practice field after reporting to Reliant on Sunday. The Texans are in the fifth week of their voluntary offseason workout program, which leads up to the start of organized team activities (OTAs) on May 21.

“(We’re) just getting accustomed to the defense, meeting the new guys and meeting all the older guys and everything,” first-round draft pick Whitney Mercilus said. “They’ve been helping us out, showing us around the building and meetings rooms and stuff like that. The coaches are bringing us along pretty slowly or whatever, allowing us to understand what they do and telling us that it’s way different than what we did in college, so we have to forget what we did in college and get accustomed to the new techniques that they do here.”

Mercilus, an outside linebacker from Illinois who led the NCAA with 16 sacks in 2011, had a big smile on his face as he discussed his first impressions of Texans defensive coordinator Wade Phillips.

“Man,” he said, pausing briefly. “Awesome. He knows the defense inside and out. He knows everything, and also offenses, what they run, inside and out, so he knows the game. He’s a genius, no doubt. He’s a great guy, also. Easy to talk to. (I can) go to him for any type of questions I have, and he’ll help me out.”

Five of the Texans’ draft picks signed on Monday, including wide receiver/punt returner Keshawn Martin, a fourth-rounder from Michigan State.

“It felt good getting back out on the field,” Martin said. “Just coming here, being a part of the Texans, it’s a great thing. There’s still work to be done, so every day, I’m going to just keep working.”

Former University of Houston quarterback Case Keenum was among the undrafted free agents to join the team on Monday.

“It was a long day, but it was good,” Keenum said. “It was good to get to work and learn an offense, just trying to work and operate and speak the offense, speak the same language as Matt (Schaub) and T.J. (Yates) and those guys are speaking. I’m picking it up slowly but surely, and it’s been a lot of fun. It’s just good to get back to playing football and not the hassle of trying to find a team and all that.”

The Texans will have 10 OTA practices beginning next Monday, followed by a mandatory three-day mini-camp from June 12-14.

“It feels great to be here,” said James, who signed with Houston on Friday after nine seasons with the Dallas Cowboys. “Being reunited with Wade (Phillips) is great, and Reggie (Herring). This is a great team. As I’ve been told on Twitter, this is the best team in Texas. The opportunity is here for us to do some great things. I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

James also provided an interesting breakdown of the dynamic between Phillips and Herring, who coached him for several seasons in Dallas.

“Reggie Herring, he’s a guy that complements Wade,” James said. “Wade is kind of laidback, but not too laidback. If you want to get Wade riled up, miss an assignment and he’ll get after you. Reggie is the guy that is a spit-on-the-side-of-your-face type of guy. He’s just on you like an old nagging woman, but they complement each other. You can just tell how the [defensive players] rallied around those two last year, and there is talent all over the field out here. Just watching them on film a couple days ago, it was impressive.”

Schaub had season-ending surgery for a Lisfranc injury on Nov. 30.

“We’re just moving forward,” he said on Monday. “I had a procedure last week, getting hardware taken out, which is customary for this thing, so [I’ll] just let the incisions heal up and move forward.

“I’m right on schedule because where the hardware removal takes place in this procedure is right where we are and so from here, we just move forward and just keep going. But we have a lot of time left to get ready, and there’s no doubt I will be ready.”

Schaub will likely not participate in the team practice portions of organized team activities (OTAs) for precautionary reasons, but he fully expects to be ready for training camp.

“Sitting here on April 16, it’s hard for me to say when I will be [100 percent],” Schaub said. “I mean, after the screws came out this past week, it’s hard for me to tell you a certain date or June or something like that. All I know is come time for training camp, I’m going to be 100 percent ready to go, and that’s all that really matters, in my mind.”

“I think there is more excitement around here than there ever has been going into an offseason program,” tight end Owen Daniels said. “Obviously, after the year we had, everyone’s fired up to get started and continue on that path. So, a lot of smiling faces in the building right now.”

Because of the lockout in 2011, there were no team-organized offseason workouts until training camp in late July.

“It’s refreshing compared to last year where we were just looking for places to work out and working out over at Rice and doing our football stuff,” quarterback Matt Schaub said Monday. “To be here with the coaches, with the strength coaches and doing our work here, where we actually work, it’s nice to have that familiarity.”

The offseason program will last for five weeks leading up to the start of organized team activities (OTAs) on May 21.

“I’m excited to be back,” safety Glover Quin said. “We had a nice little break, but I’m excited to be back with the guys, with the team, and starting our journey for next year. I think it’ll be good, getting a chance to go through the offseason. Last year, we were locked out and when we came back, it was straight into camp and so we were still learning the defense as we were going through the season. So I think getting a chance to have an offseason and work with the guys, work with the coaches and dive more into our playbook and more into our looks and things like that, I think we’ll benefit from it.”

Smith, who played fullback in the NFL for seven years, is entering his third season with the Texans. He previously spent three years as head strength and conditioning coach of the Kansas City Chiefs (2007-09) and six seasons as an assistant strength coach with the Denver Broncos (2001-06).

On Wednesday, Smith spoke to HoustonTexans.com about the workouts from inside his office in the Texans’ weight room:

How excited are you to be getting the players back here on Monday?
“Oh, very. For me, it’s my second offseason program. Unfortunately, last year would’ve been the second; we didn’t have one, so I’m excited about the fact that we’re going to be able to have guys in here and get our program going again and we can regroup and start becoming a team again.”

Coach [Gary] Kubiak explained how the program will be broken up into two phases. What exactly will Phase 1, the first two weeks, be like for the players?
“Well, we don’t have a lot of time. We’ve had quite a few guys already working here. I’ve checked on most of our guys. A bunch of them, I already know they’ve been working, they’ve been doing something if they haven’t been here. So we’re going to hit the ground running for the most part, but at the same time, be smart enough and cautious enough to evaluate guys as to where they are before we plunge right in to doing something that could get someone injured.”

What kind of workouts will the players be doing?
“We’re going to train the way we’ve always trained. That’s on our feet for strength, power and explosion. We’re gonna train with free weights, and we’re gonna train our posterior chain. That’s the things we’re gonna do. We’re gonna do those things because I think those relate to football, not just about weightlifting.”

Have you heard any gripes yet from players who are dreading the team runs?
“Not yet, but I’m sure that it’ll start up at some point. And you know, when it does, that’s usually a pretty good sign, actually. Guys are complaining because it’s a little bit of a challenge. Hopefully, you want to write a program that’s a little bit of a challenge but, at the same time, logically progressive. You’re not throwing them in the deep water quite yet, but we’ve got to know where they are and we want to work ‘em pretty hard, because we want to train at a high level.”

How valuable is it to have an offseason to work with the players as opposed to being in a lockout last year?
“Obviously, it’s valuable. You could just look league-wide last year with the injury situation. I don’t think guys really know where they are if they don’t have some sort of gauge, if they don’t have someone actually following them consistently through a program or a progression. I think that’s what the offseason program offers, and I do think it is of the utmost importance for us to have that – not only in that aspect, but in the aspect of us being a team. I think that’s when you become a team is when you start this process, working in the offseason program. That’s what I remember as a player and that’s what I’ve seen over the years in the weight room as a coach.”

This team always seems to have a high participation level at the workouts even though they’re voluntary. What does that say?
“I think what that says is that they believe in the program, number one, and they believe in the process that it’s going to take for us to become champions. That’s the one thing I think that it says about our players, but also, it says a lot about our head coach and our front office, our GM, because they make it important. They allow for us to make it important. They allow for me to make it important for guys to show up to come in, to strongly suggest and encourage that they come and train as a team, because it is important. I think it says a lot about that.”

What exactly was the player participation level two years ago?
“Out of a possible total at that time of 52 workouts – it won’t be that now; because of the CBA, things are shorter – but 90 percent of our team had 100 percent attendance out of the 52. So 90 percent of our guys had 100 percent. We had one player that was at 80 percent at that time. So I thought that was impressive the first year, but like I said, we have backing from our head coach, our GM, and we have a group of guys that understand the importance of it now. And I do believe it comes from your team leadership, too, guys like Antonio Smith. Guys like that. Guys like Chris Myers. Guys like Duane Brown. Those guys that are leaders in the weight room here. Danieal Manning. I could go – I don’t want to get in trouble by naming names – but those are guys that are important to our program, and with their leadership, they kind of make it important with them training with intensity. And now we’ve got a whole new group of guys that are in leadership roles like that – Connor Barwin, even J.J. Watt, Brooks Reed – bringing guys along, bringing some of the younger guys along with ‘em. That’s what happens when you get in and you work hard. Shaun Cody, guys like that. You get in and train hard, it helps, and it really does affect not just a few guys but it affects the body of your team because of that.”

Have you been encouraged by the number of guys who have been here working out on their own already this offseason?
“I’ve been encouraged with that. I think that guys have seen a lot. We’ve seen what commitment and hard work, what you can do with that, what you can accomplish with that, after last year. And I just think that that has kind of carried over and I think these guys are expecting, we are expecting, to win. We are expecting good things. When you get a team that works that way and that thinks that way as a collective kind of mindset, that’s always a good thing.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Texans head coach Gary Kubiak said on Tuesday. “It’s later than normal with the new CBA [Collective Bargaining Agreement] rules and stuff, but I think our guys have had a good break. Rehab has been going good, and it’ll be a good chance to get our hands back on everybody and get to work.”

Before the lockout last offseason, the Texans’ offseason program typically started each year in late March or early April. It’s now condensed per the terms of the new CBA, and the format is slightly different.

The Texans’ program has been divided into two phases. Phase One, the first two weeks, will involve the players working strictly with strength and conditioning coach Cedric Smith and his staff. They’ll lift weights at Reliant and do team runs across the street on the Methodist Training Center fields.

In Phase Two, the following three weeks, Kubiak and his assistant coaches can do limited work with players on the field and in the film room. Players also will continue to work out under Smith’s supervision.

“Really, what I want to happen the first two weeks is I want them just to be with Cedric and spend a lot of time physically finding out where everybody’s at,” Kubiak said. “That’s Phase One of the program, so most of that time will be spent with Cedric. Phase Two of the program will encompass the weight room, the running and then we’ll start to get field and classroom work also. So it gives us a chance to go back and review last season, study our cut-ups and then at the end of phase two, we actually get all our young players in and get ready for OTAs.”

Players have been allowed to work out on their own at Reliant all offseason, and the likes of Connor Barwin, Brooks Reed, James Casey, Ben Tate, Antoine Caldwell, T.J. Yates, Lestar Jean and Bryan Braman have been regulars in recent weeks. Defensive ends J.J. Watt and Antonio Smith are among those who have arrived this week to get a head start on next Monday.

The upcoming offseason workout program is voluntary, but the Texans had 90 percent of their players participate in 100 percent of the last set of workouts in 2010. Kubiak expects high participation this year as well.

“It always has been,” he said. “Our guys are great. Most of our guys live here in town. They love living in Houston. It is a voluntary program, but at the same time, our guys, we’ve got a strong football team that believes that they need to be here to get better, and they’ve done a great job with it.”