After being cut by 49ers and Jets, Bruce Ellington made a huge impact for Texans

Could 2017 be the breakout year the former basketball star has waited for?

Bruce Ellington needed fewer than four minutes to make an impact with the Houston Texans. The fourth-year wideout, matched up against All-Pro Malcolm Butler, used his explosive lateral speed to create playmaking separation in his first drive with the team, gaining 60 yards on three targets — all completions — to emerge as the latest threat in the Texans’ offense.

Not bad for a player who was waived by two of the league’s most receiver-needy teams earlier this month.

Ellington’s breakout preseason performance could be the start of a bounceback year. The former fourth-round pick missed all of 2016 thanks to a hamstring injury and wound up being cut by the 49ers on Aug. 3. His trip to the unemployment line didn’t last long — the Jets claimed him later that afternoon.

His tenure with New York, a franchise whose receiving depth chart is just a pile of ventriloquist dummies, lasted one day. After reports he needed extra attention from trainers throughout practice, the club waived him with a failed physical designation.

That led him to Houston, where he spent his first exhibition game with his new team getting the better of one of the league’s top wideouts. However, Ellington’s athleticism has never been in question.

When the versatile wideout retires, there may be a spot waiting for him in the University of South Carolina Hall of Fame. Ellington starred for the Gamecocks on the gridiron and the hardwood, earning a starting role on the school’s basketball team as a true freshman. The hard-driving guard was an inefficient shooter who still found ways to give opponents fits with his hard-charging drives to the basket. He dropped 22 points on Michigan State in his second game in the NCAA and led his team in scoring that winter.

His fearlessness on the court led to success on the field. Ellington joined Steve Spurrier’s football team as a sophomore and developed into one of South Carolina’s most dynamic scoring threats, recording 15 receiving touchdowns his final two seasons with the program. His vision made him a powerful improviser, giving opposing defensive backs — and occasionally his own quarterbacks — fits.

At 5’9 and with a dismal 33.6 career shooting percentage, basketball was a professional non-starter for Ellington. In 2014, he left Frank Martin’s rebuilding team and gave up his final year of football eligibility to focus on the NFL draft. San Francisco rolled the dice on the two-sport star in the fourth round of that year’s draft and immediately deployed him as a key special teamer. He was a solid returner for the 49ers but not much of a receiver — in two active seasons with the club, he’d make 92 punt/kick returns but only 19 catches.

With his positional value low and questions about his health abounding after a hamstring injury sidelined him through San Francisco’s dismal 2016, the 49ers cut bait on the 25-year-old wideout. One day later, the Jets did as well.

That winding road led him to Houston, where he put up a four-catch, 93-yard performance, hauling in 80 percent of his targets while matching up against the Patriots’ first-team defense in his first game with the team. Meanwhile, the 49ers and Jets active receiving corps look like this:

It’s early, and there’s no telling whether Ellington can stay healthy and consistent enough to have an impact in the regular season. He failed to have a noticeable impact in San Francisco’s passing game while healthy, and those 49ers had many of the same quarterback concerns the Texans have now. Even so, waiving the young wideout could be a regretful mistake for two moribund franchises this fall.