National Football League: Column
Justin Houston walks with a swagger toward the next part of his career. Things will be different now, whether he accepts it. He is more past than future, more established than rising.
By the time this season is over, he will have made more than $80 million in his career, a total boosted by bungled timing from the Chiefs in waiting until he had recorded his franchise-record 22-sack season in 2014 to negotiate a long-term deal.
Houston is approaching his 30th birthday, which is young in virtually all walks of life except professional football. It is likely that only four members of the Chiefs 53-man roster will be that old in 2018. One will be the punter. Another the backup quarterback.
There is every possibility that this could be Houstons last season with the Chiefs, or at least his last before the team asks him to redo a contract that pays him like a top pass rusher still in his best years.
Publicly, Houston and those around him project confidence that the past is still the future, that whatever natural fade has occurred in his supernatural physical abilities can be made up for with technique, a strong football mind and experience.
I can feel it, its just my body presence, he said. When you have surgery, and the surgery I had on my knee, it takes time. As much as you want to be ready, it still takes time to get your pop back and get where you want to be. I think Im there. I think Im beyond there right now.
This is a stance that bows to the necessary and stubborn confidence required of a man who made it from a town of 30,000 people in rural Georgia to the top of the NFL food chain. But it also defies logic. Two major injuries muddied much of his prime, and constant beatings as an everyday linebacker who rushes the quarterback and plays the run with equal ferocity will eventually take their piece of any man.
But if it was simply about PR, or what a proud athlete tells himself, then this would all be immaterial. This is about much more.
Houstons place in the Chiefs history of pass rushers is secure. His 69 { sacks rank fourth all-time, behind just Derrick Thomas, Tamba Hali and Neil Smith. With three more representative seasons, he would trail only Thomas.
Thats well within reason, too. This is not a column predicting the end of Houston as a good player. Just a sober look at where Houston is in his career, the pounding and surgeries hes had already, and a contract that always presented 2018 as potentially his last in Kansas City the Chiefs would save $14 million by cutting him after this season.
The calculus controlling Houstons future rests largely on his performance this season. The most likely outcome is a renegotiation that retains a respected teammate, but at a lower salary that would bridge the gap between a player in his 30s and a front office led by general manager Brett Veach that prioritizes youth.
Because in a way, this season marks the beginning of the Chiefs identifying Houstons new place.
In the three years since he signed a contract that made him the leagues highest-paid defensive player, Houston has 21 sacks 31 games. Seven men have more in the last two seasons. Twenty-three others have been more productive over the last three years.
Raw sack numbers are often severely misleading, but thats a pretty good description of where Houston is now and going forward a very good player, but no longer a force of nature.
If you watch film of Houston from 2017 his first full season since the 22 sacks in 2014 you see flashes of dominance. His hands are otherworldly strong, and particularly on run plays to his side you see him moving larger opponents with almost comical success.
