James Houston, a second-year defender, has been missed by the Detroit Lions. Following his breakout rookie season, there were great expectations for his sophomore season, with many wondering if he could build on his success from the previous year. However, he suffered a serious injury just two weeks into the season and has been out for several months. Detroit’s pass rush has struggled for the majority of the 2023 season due to an injury to one of their sack leaders from 2022. Dan Campbell previously stated that the organization was looking for a December return for their 2022 sixth-round pick, but that timeline appears to have pushed backward.
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“I mean, we’d love to, but you know, we’d be shooting for December.” But he still has a long way to go. “And if it’s going to happen, it’ll probably be in late December,” Campbell told 97.1 The Ticket. “So we don’t know, we just don’t know how anyone will recover from injury.” I believe you can recover from this, and fast once it’s healed and he’s out and about. But he needs to get out there. He needs to practice, get his feet under him, and work on his mental game. So, I don’t know, it’s hard to describe what he’ll look like until he’s out there.”
Houston had a major effect as a pass rusher in the final seven games of last season. He was promoted off the practice squad after failing to make the team out of training camp and got two sacks in his NFL debut.
That set the tone for a fantastic period in which he had eight sacks in seven games. He’d been training hard this year to be the team’s SAM linebacker in the base defense. The Lions are tied for 21st in the league in sacks without him. Aidan Hutchinson, the team’s leader, has only 4.5 sacks.
