Why wait til the off season? Shrink says he should be able to gain 35-45% in strength by the last quarter of the season.

Key to the season...

The stream I watched sucked monkey nuts, but I did see Ford do a good job of setting the edge a couple of times... we all know its critical that he improves against the run, and he showed up in that regard for the most part, it was encouraging

He will get a decent amount of sacks and pressures, I've seen him flash enough there to not be overly concerned about that facet of his game

Outside of the QB virtually every year, i'm not sure i recall a season being so dependent on a single player as it is Dee Ford this year.

Ford and Gaines ... if they suck, we suck


Nothing is 100% but dam, they really,really need to play well this year

Yep, he definitely showed improvement in his willingness to slam his nose in there to set the edge Saturday.

Not much else, but it's some improvement

You're a ****ing idiot, go root for Houston or whatever you're gonna do but PLEASE shut the **** up about the place.

And Cushing isn't the same because he quit with the roids.

So saying if our best defensive player misses half the season they won't win the division is my dumb statement of the day?

Yea. This team went 6-1 without him last year, and our offense looks significantly better.

Shit, if we had Maclin, Ware, Morse, Charles, and LDT for the Patriots game we probably go 7-0 and at least get to the ÀFCCG.

Well, I don't see alot of Johnny football quarterback ed teams early on the schedule, but hopefully it works out.

There have been comments suggesting Houston could miss the entire season since the day the news broke. Even Dorsey suggested it's possible.

KC won't miss a beat if Houston is going to need a lot of time. They got Dee Ford.

And Dorsey also said "we've been assured by our doctors he will play this season."

Houston himself seemed to indicate he thought the talk of him missing the whole season was bullshit.

Should have drafted Attaochu.

Yeah I have no idea why people are trying to downplay his absence. He may be the best player on the defense, filling a role that most consider the most important. He was averaging over a sack per game for 2 seasons. That production will be missed.

Nobody is downplaying his absence. I think we're all in agreement that we need him if we want to win in the playoffs and win a SB.

But even got back to 2013, this team has proven it can win without Houston. Even when we've lost, we have been competitive and still had our chances to win regardless of his absence.

We now have an offense that should be able to just simply outscore teams. The only downplaying being done is to the rest of the roster. With or without him, this team has what it needs to win the division. We beat the Raiders without him twice last year.