Detroit Lions OLB James Houston: Injured ankle won't be 100% till 2024
It wasn't a lost season for James Houston, not even close.
Houston, who finished second on the Detroit Lions with eight sacks in seven games as a rookie, played just 43 defensive snaps in the regular season and playoffs because of a fractured fibula he suffered in Week 2.
The second-year linebacker missed most of the regular season, but returned to play 11 snaps as a situational rusher in last week's NFC championship game loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
For Houston, getting back on the field after more than four months off was important, as was playing a game of that magnitude against Trent Williams, one of the best offensive lineman in the NFL.
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"The feeling off the loss, the feeling of coming back and going against one of the best left tackles to play and feeling like I had the opportunity to make certain plays and just not doing it, I feel like all that will carry me for a long time," Houston said.
Houston did not register a stat against the 49ers and did not record a sack all season, but he said he emerged a better player than he was in 2022.
As a rookie, Houston spent the first half of the season on the Lions' practice squad and played the second half of the year in a designated pass rush role, where he overwhelmed unsuspecting opponents with his speed, burst and bend. This season, Houston added to his pass rush arsenal and was working to prove his competency as an every-down defender before he was injured while blocking on special teams.
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He underwent tightrope surgery in September, when he had a plate and four screws put in his ankle, and said he still was not 100% when he returned to the field.
"It’s not going to be there until probably next year," Houston told the Free Press at locker clean out Monday. "So I mean, it’s just work. That’s all it is and that’s what I'm going to be doing in the offseason is making sure the ankle’s ready to go and it’s almost better than the other one."
The Lions could have a new-look pass rush group in 2024, with Romeo Okwara and Charles Harris set to become unrestricted free agents in March and the need to get more out of whoever plays opposite Aidan Hutchinson.
Hutchinson had a team-high 11.5 sacks in his second NFL season, including five in the last two games of the regular season, but no other Lion had more than five. Josh Paschal, Alim McNeill, John Cominsky and Brodric Martin are among the linemen under contract in 2024.
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Houston said he hopes to be the Lions' answer opposite Hutchinson next fall, and plans to spend the offseason "making sure I'm in shape and I’m ready to go for camp, making sure my ankle’s ready, my mental’s ready, everything is just good to go."
"That’s my plan," he said. "I’m going to attack the offseason as hard as I can to be the player that can be that other help for this pass rush and I’m going to be there. I’m going to try my hardest to do whatever it takes."
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' James Houston: Injured ankle won't be 100% till 2024
