Pressers and scrums: The curious case of James Houston, plus injury updates for Sewell, Reynolds and Melifonwu

Detroit — I’m planning on piecing together a final 53-man roster projection Sunday morning, but even while I’m churning out the postgame copy from the press box Saturday night, I’m already working through the debates in my head.

One of a handful of spots where I know I’m going to get stuck is what to do with James Houston. The memory of his electric rookie season in 2022 lingers, but it’s far enough in the past that it doesn’t seem to have a significant bearing on the team’s current evaluation.

For two offseasons, the Lions have tested Houston’s versatility, curious if he could do anything other than rush the passer, but have seemingly settled on the idea he’s a one-trick pony.

Of course, if you’re going to be a one-trick pony in the NFL, that’s one of the better tricks to know.

Houston has been battling a knee injury, but he returned to action for the preseason finale and did what he does best, registering a sack and a second QB hit. So if we accept that’s all he can do well, how does that fit in the shaping of the team’s 53-man roster?

I decided to ask coach Dan Campbell directly.

“That’s a good question because we really didn’t have him a lot of camp,” Campbell said. “He was hurt, so we didn’t get to see him at Kansas City this (last) week. So he’s probably had maybe half of training camp, if that, somewhere in there. So, you still have to go off the totality of what it is.

“We understand he’s a Year 3 player that — we have to take the body of work that is taking place in practice against our very good tackles,” Campbell continued. “We got two of the best tackles in the league that he has to go against. You take those (reps) and then you take a little bit of what you saw today, ‘OK, well what does the health look like? Can he still move?’ But, I think, look, that’s going to be a hard decision for (general manager) Brad (Holmes) and myself. You know it is, one way or another.

"That’s kind of what you are asking, ‘Is it enough?’ Campbell said. “It’s hard to say that right now. This will be a lot of the things that we hash out between the two of us, the coaching staff, all of it. We’ve got to make sure we’re seeing it clearly.”

That’s a long quote, longer than I’d typically use, but I wanted to give you the totality of it. And, taking it for face value, it doesn’t sound great for Houston. Especially when you consider Campbell continues to sing the praises of another one of the contenders for that roster spot, undrafted rookie Isaac Ukwu.

“I thought Ukwu showed up again — it was a critical turnover,” Campbell said about the second-quarter fumble forced by the first-year edge rusher.

Obviously, nothing has been decided. Holmes may like Houston more than Campbell and sway the vote. But a lot of people have viewed the former sixth-round pick who racked up 8.0 sacks in seven games in 2022 as a lock. That’s clearly not the case.

● Campbell confirmed previous reporting that offensive tackle Penei Sewell is going to be OK after an injury scare earlier this week. And it sounds like the same can be said for backup running back Craig Reynolds, who exited the same practice with a lower-body injury.

“Sewell and Craig will be good,” Campbell said.

Another player who has been out of action with an undisclosed injury is safety Ifeatu Melifwonu. He hasn’t been seen since playing 36 defensive snaps in last week’s preseason game against the Chiefs, and his injury status — pardon the pun — is a bit more iffy.

“He’s been out for a little while,” Campbell said. "(It’s) nothing that we feel like is long-term yet, it’s (just) continuing to take a little while. I’m not too sure on that one. I don’t know when we’ll have him back or if he’ll be back, what that timeline is.”

At this point, it’s probably a stretch to suggest Melifonwu is an injured-reserve candidate, but the fourth-year defensive back might not be ready for Week 1 based on that update.

● Asked about quarterback Hendon Hooker’s offseason, Campbell praised the second-year quarterback’s development, particularly the way he’s learned to block out the noise and bounce back from his mistakes.

“I feel like I learn more about him from the failures than I do watching him throw,” Campbell said. “…Like today, you have five sacks, all right, you get sacked five times. Some of it his own doing, and some of it the O-line, some of it receivers not open, but the point is, you get sacked five times. Then, all of a sudden, you bounce back and he doesn’t look frazzled. He doesn’t look under duress. He looks pretty calm, he looks steady, he moves us down the field. That’s encouraging. That’s how you grow, and he did that for the rest of the game.

“At the end of the day, when you just step back and look at the performance, you’re like, you know what, he got better.”

Hooker said he does put a lot of his energy into learning from his mistakes. Beyond the sacks, he also had an interception. With that, it’s always easy to tell who is a good teammate by who accepts blame for those moments. In this case, both Hooker and his intended target on the play, Isaiah Williams, accepted culpability for the miscommunication.

“Miscommunication between me and Zay,” Hooker said. “That’s on me. I see him throttling down, I need to go ahead and just put it on his body instead of throwing him in stride.”

● Even after a series of procedural penalties during the preseason, Campbell said he’d prefer to keep punter Jack Fox from handling kickoffs. Still, the team had hoped to get Fox a couple of reps in the new format during this contest, but the game flow changed the plan.