Here are the two unheralded Lions who could make a big difference in 2024.
There is a fine line between being a legit playoff team and a Super Bowl contender in the NFL. The 2024 Detroit Lions are undoubtedly the former, but to become the latter, they will need players up and down the roster to step up. That means Detroit fans should keep an eye on hidden gems like James Houston and Hendon Hooker.
Can James Houston be ‘The Problem’ again?
The Lions struck gold in the 2022 NFL Draft when the Jacksonville Jaguars decided to take defensive end Travon Walker No. 1 overall, gifting Detroit hometown star Aidan Hutchinson.
Hutchinson is now a Pro Bowl DE with 21.0 sacks in two seasons. With the former Michigan Wolverine anchoring the defensive line, the Lions’ mandate now is to find pass-rushing counterparts to take the pressure (and double teams) off of him.
In that same draft, it looked like the Lions found that person 215 picks after they took Hutchinson. That’s where the team drafted James Houston out of Jackson State.
The undersized (6-foot-1, 245 pounds) edge rusher didn’t even suit up for the first 10 games of his rookie season, but once he did, he took the NFL by storm.
He started with two sacks against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills and followed that up with a sack apiece in his next three games. With that, he joined Terrell Suggs and Santana Dotson as the only players in league history to get a sack in the first four games of a career. And while Houston didn’t get a sack in his fifth game, he made up for it by getting three against the Chicago Bears in his sixth.
Unfortunately for Houston and the Lions, the player nicknamed “The Problem” only made it through two games in 2023 before a leg injury ended his season.
Now, in 2024, Houston should come back fully healthy and ready to rush, but there are still issues to deal with. As a rookie, Houston was just a pass rush specialist who came in on passing downs. In 2023, the team tried him at off-ball linebacker on early downs, and he didn’t fare as well, creating no sacks in his two games.
James Houston is a gem on the Lions roster no matter how much he plays. If he is just a pass rusher, that’s fine. He will still make an impact on games.
That said, if The Problem can become a problem for offenses on all three downs, he could go from hidden gem to NFL star this season.
The Lions may have to call on Hendon Hooker at some point
After two incredible seasons in Detroit, the haters aren’t hating on Jared Goff as much as they used to. And the Goff lovers are loving him even more. You couldn’t turn on the 2024 NFL Draft — hosted by the Motor City — without hearing rapid Lions fans randomly chanting their quarterback’s name.
While all that is true, there are also some other key truths that Lions fans must face with their quarterback.
Goff will turn 30 in October, and while he’s been durable for two of his three seasons in Detroit, he did miss three games in 2021 and several games in the seasons prior to that. Plus, there have been times in Goff’s career when he’s played poorly.
Also, most Super Bowl runs take all 53 men (plus some) on the roster to make it work. That means the backup quarterback, too.
This year, the team’s backup QB will be Hendon Hooker.
The former Tennessee signal-caller looked like he might be a first- or second-round pick halfway through his final season with the Volunteers, but a knee injury pushed him down to the third last season. The Lions picked him up and gave him a redshirt year, and now is time for Hooker to ascend at least to the primary backup spot.
Watching Hooker throughout the preseason is something Lions fans should do carefully.
It’s important that the young QB at least shows signs that he is a potential NFL QB down the line. For one, if he’s called upon this season, he may have to win a game to keep the Lions in the hunt. Also, it would be nice to see that he could be the quarterback of the future, even though the Lions are now locked into Goff on the roster until at least 2027.
Finally, if he does show signs of talent and Goff stays productive and healthy, Hooker could be an incredible trade chip who brings back much more than the third-round pick the team spent on him.
