KC Chiefs: Healthy Justin Houston Could Make All the Difference
The KC Chiefs will square off against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday night in a rematch of the gross week four game that was played on Sunday Night Football. This time, however, the Chiefs will have Justin Houston in his game day attire.
When the Kansas City Chiefs played the Steelers in week four of the regular season, they managed to get two sacks on Ben Roethlisberger in what ended up being a 43-14 route in Pittsburgh’s favor.
Those two sacks didn’t seem to effect Ben all that much, as he tossed for 300 yards and five touchdowns on the evening. He basically let Le’Veon Bell do the rest of the work.
In that game, the Chiefs were pretty banged up, even early on in the season. Their biggest player to be absent for that week four debacle was linebacker Justin Houston, who was still nursing his knee injury from the season prior.
Houston returned to action in week 11 against the Buccaneers, but was limited in that game. His next game was an absolute dominant one, as he trucked through that Broncos offensive line and had three sacks on Trevor Siemian in the first half.
Had the referees not started ignoring the blatant holds on Houston in the second half, he probably would have had at least five on the evening.
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The point being that having Houston in that game was why the KC Chiefs won that night. He had a sack on Siemian in the end zone, which resulted in a safety and just manhandled that offensive line all night long.
Houston hasn’t had as much success since then, but he’s been limited in the last few games. He was out for the final two games of the season and had the bye week to rest up, and it’s been reported that Justin Houston will play on Sunday night against the Steelers.
This is huge for the Kansas City Chiefs.
If Houston can make the type of impact that he did against Denver in week 12, then the Steelers could be in trouble. Houston provides the Chiefs with the elite pass rusher that they need and were he not playing in this game, I might not have high hopes for the Kansas City Chiefs’ chances of winning.
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In this day in age of the NFL, the most important positions on the team are at quarterback, cornerback, and I’d say a pass rusher. If the Chiefs can get their elite pass rusher back in true form on Sunday, then Big Ben and that Steelers offensive line (that very good offensive line, might I add) could be in for a long day.
Let’s hope so anyway.