2023 Stat Prediction for James Houston
EDGE defender James Houston was one of the best stories in the NFL a season ago.
Houston, a 2022 sixth-round pick of the Detroit Lions out of Jackson State, started off his rookie campaign as a relative unknown.
He began the year on the Lions' practice squad, and didn't log a single snap until Detroit's Thanksgiving clash with the Buffalo Bills in Week 12.
Although in a limited role, Houston made an immediate impact in his NFL debut. On just five defensive snaps, he proceeded to record two sacks of Bills Pro Bowl quarterback Josh Allen, while also coming up with a fumble recovery.
Houston proved to be more than just a "one-hit wonder," too.
The 6-foot-1, 225-pound defender, in fact, produced at least one sack in each of his first four games, and went on to amass eight sacks, seven tackles for loss and 11 quarterback hits in a mere seven games. During those seven contests, he also helped the Lions record a 5-2 mark.
Additionally, Houston notched 7.5 sacks through his first six games, becoming the first player in NFL history to produce that amount of sacks in such a span to start one's career. He also became only the fifth player in league history to amass both six sacks and one forced fumble through six career games since at least 1999.
Going into his second season in the league, Houston – who played in more than 50 percent of Detroit's defensive snaps just once a season ago – wants to become an every-down player.
"For me, I’ve got to get on the field,” Houston said, via the Detroit Free Press, earlier this offseason. “I don’t know what that looks like, but I got to figure something out. Just like last year, it was just like, they didn’t really know where to put me. I feel like it’s kind of similar, the same way. They don’t really know where to put me, and so I’m kind of that guy, hopefully I can be a chess piece and not too much of a liability, I guess, where I really can only play one position, where you can move me in different ways and put me on the field. So, that’s really my goal: to get the team to be able to trust me enough to get to that point.”
In year No. 2 for Houston in the NFL, I'm projecting that he'll produce 10.5 sacks, 11 tackles for loss and 15 QB hits.
