NFL Star Tank Dell Addresses Nightclub Shooting, 'Wrong Place, Wrong Time'

Houston Texans star wideout Tank Dell is opening up about the shooting that almost derailed his sophomore season in the NFL ... saying the incident was simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As we previously reported, Dell was wounded after gunfire broke out at a Florida nightclub back in April ... which was sparked by a verbal altercation between a 16-year-old and another individual at the club.

Dell was hit during the incident ... and suffered minor injuries.

When asked about that night, the 23-year-old said he was assured there would be plenty of staffers to make sure the venue was safe prior to showing up ... but it still didn't prevent the shooting from going down.

"My boys saw that I was home so they hit me up and was like 'pull up to the party,'" Dell told Barstool Sports' "Million Dollaz Worth of Game."

"They told me there was going to be security, people getting checked at the door. So I'm like, 'All right, cool.' It's a good vibe, and there was a lot of people that I knew in there, so it was cool. Then that s*** popped off outta nowhere."

When things got heated among the other patrons, Dell explained he thought he removed himself from the situation ... but found himself in the middle of the argument instead.

Dell's teammate -- second-year signal caller C.J. Stroud -- said he was at a Sixers game at the time of the shooting ... and found out about what happened through a text from Texans PR.

"All I read was, 'Tank got shot,' and I just dropped my phone," Stroud said. "I started tearing up, man. You know, when you hear that, you start thinking the worst."

Stroud said the moment taught him they can't go home and do the same things they used to ... now that they're rich star athletes.

"Sometime[s] I go home, that's where I'm comfortable at, going to the pool parties, going to the bowling alleys, like the skating rinks to the house parties, like, these the people I grew up with, I ain't change cause I got a little bit of money," he said. "But for that moment to happen that quick, it was like an eye-opener experience, not only for Tank but really for the rest of the world and athletes all around."