Denico Autry Activated Off COVID List

The Indianapolis Colts will have their sack leader for Sunday at Houston as defensive end/tackle Denico Autry was cleared from the reserve/COVID-19 list on Thursday after missing the past two starts.

INDIANAPOLIS — The return of defensive end/tackle Denico Autry should provide a boost to the Indianapolis Colts’ struggling pash rush.

Without him, after the seventh-year pro was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, the Colts had only one sack in each of the last two games. Autry, who leads the team with six sacks, was activated on Thursday. The Colts still have All-Pro defensive tackle DeForest Buckner on the list.

The Colts (7-4) visit the AFC South Division rival Houston Texans on Sunday, which means trying to box in elusive quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has led the team to three wins in four games and has 15 touchdown passes without an interception in the past six starts.

Presuming he’s fully healthy and doesn’t suffer any conditioning issues from being inactive, Autry should help with that. Linebacker Darius Leonard smiled when asked about Autry’s return in a Thursday video call.

“It feels amazing,” Leonard said. “Denico has been playing some great ball before the situation he was in. I’m just looking forward to him coming back out and especially him being a dominant force on the field.”

Denico Autry's six sacks are the second-highest season total in his seven-year NFL career :: Mykal McEldowney/USA TODAY Sports

Leonard expressed frustration about the Colts’ 45-26 home loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, when the visitors had success with bouncing runs outside as NFL rushing leader Derrick Henry ran for 178 yards, including 140 and three touchdowns in the first half.

Again, having Autry on the outside of the D-line should help with that.

“When I talked about playing outside zones or anything, you see it in the Cleveland game and you see it in the first Tennessee game, when they try to run plays like that and Denico being the dog that he is, holding the edge, making sure that the ball cuts back. Those are things you look for with guys like that, someone who’s got motor and is very mean, he has both.

“Definitely I’m happy to see him back. I know he’s glad to be back. We’re just ready to go back out there and hopefully we can get this thing going in the right direction again.”

The Colts still could be without Buckner, who was placed on the COVID list eight days ago. It’s possible, if he’s been without symptoms and consistently tested negative, he could be activated after 10 days, per NFL guidelines. That would mean he could be activated for Sunday. But the timetable is uncertain, based on his testing history and if there have been symptoms, information that the Colts won’t disclose for personal reasons out of respect for the player.

Buckner has a team-high 16 quarterback hits. The Colts had just three in the past two games. The only sack on Sunday was without a tackle and credited to Leonard after quarterback Ryan Tannehill ran out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage and the linebacker was the closest defender.

The Colts rank 17th in sacks with 23. Defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus was asked on Tuesday to assess the pass rush in the past two games.

“Well, the pass rush, obviously we didn’t have anything last week, so it’s something that we need to work on,” the coach said. “When you’re missing a couple of guys, sometimes pass rush isn’t as good as it was, but we expect to have pass rush every single week, whoever’s out there. We always play eight or nine guys at the defensive line, and we’ve got to continue to work on that.”