James Houston Not Returning Anytime Soon

James Houston fractured his ankle in September.

The Detroit Lions have missed second-year defender James Houston. 

After bursting on the scene his rookie season, expectations were very high heading into his sophomore campaign, as many wondered if he could build upon the success he had last season. However, he suffered a severe injury just two weeks into this season and has been sidelined for the past couple of months. 

Detroit's pass rush has struggled for most of the 2023 season, as one of their sack leaders from 2022 has been sidelined with an injury.

Dan Campbell had said the team was hoping for a December return for their 2022 sixth round pick, however that timetable seems to have shifted backward. 

"I mean we would love to, there again, you know we'd be shooting for December. But he's still got a ways to go. And that's probably more late December, if it's going to happen," Campbell told 97.1 The Ticket. "So we don't know, we just don't know how anybody's going to come back from injury. I do think this is one you can come back from, and pretty quickly once it's healed and he's out and about. But he still has to get out there. He's got to practice, get his feet under him, get the mental side of it. So, I don't know, until he's out there it's hard to say what he's going to look like."

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Last season, Houston made a huge impact as a pass rusher during the season's final seven games. After not making the team out of training camp, he was elevated from the practice squad and had two sacks in his NFL debut. 

That set the tone for a superb stretch, where he finished the season with eight sacks in seven games. 

This year, he'd been working to take the team's SAM linebacker role within the base defense. Without him, the Lions are tied for 21st in the league in sacks. The team's leader, Aidan Hutchinson, has just 4.5 sacks.