Texans wide receiver Tank Dell speaks at length about the shooting; CJ Stroud says the incident opened his eyes

HOUSTON – Texans wide receiver Tank Dell and quarterback CJ Stroud sat down with Million Dollaz Worth of Game in a video released Sunday.

In the interview, Dell opened up and spoke for the first time about the shooting and Stroud’s initial reaction when he heard about his teammate’s injury.

“First of all, I’m blessed … for me it was just the wrong place at the wrong time,” Dell said.

He remembered that he had returned to his hometown to visit his mother, but was invited to a pool party by a friend.

“I wasn’t even planning on going to the little pool party or anything, but my guys saw I was home and told me to pull over. They told me it was security, people were being checked at the door, it was a good vibe and there were a lot of people there that I knew,” Dell said.

He said he thought he was safe, but then “out of the blue the situation got out of hand.”

Dell said that during the argument he thought he had removed himself from the situation, but then he got caught between the two fighting people.

“You see in the video, when I ran over, I thought I had removed myself from the situation – from the altercation – when they were arguing, but I put myself between two people and it just got crazy,” he said.

Stroud was asked about his reaction when he first heard the news of Dell’s shooting.

“You know, it’s kind of crazy. I was actually in Philly. I was there with my buddies Michael Rubin and Michael Parsons, so I was at the 76ers game against the Knicks,” he said.

Stroud said he received a long text message from the Texans’ public relations department after the game about Dell’s shooting.

“I just read that Tank got shot and then I dropped my phone. I started crying, man. You know, when you hear that, you think the worst,” he said.

Stroud said the first thing he did was pray and thank God for saving him from a tragic situation.

“Even though we know we’re normal, we’re still normal, maybe the people around us don’t know that yet, so they still put us in that environment,” he said. “It was a good moment for me to realize that I can’t go home and do the same things I did before. Because sometimes I go home, I feel comfortable, go to pool parties, go to bowling alleys, go to ice rinks, go to house parties. Those are the people I grew up with. I haven’t changed just because I have a little money. But for that moment to come so quickly was like an eye-opening experience, not just for Tank, but for the rest of the world and for athletes everywhere.”

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW: