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Report: Justin Houston likely to miss regular-season games

Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Justin Houston likely won’t practice at all during training camp, head coach Andy Reid told reporters Tuesday. This likely means, via NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport, that Houston will not be ready for the start of the regular season, either.

Houston had surgery to repair ACL and LCL tears in February, at which point the prognosis for his return was between six and 12 months. Now that training camp is upon is, it seems a near certainty he won’t be ready for the season opener, if not the first few weeks or more.

At one point, there was doubt about whether Houston would even play this season or not, but clearly his recovery has been positive to this point. But recently, Reid pumped the brakes on a quick return by his star pass rusher.

“When you’re around him, you have this optimism he’s going to be back in a short period of time, but in reality it’s going to take a little bit,” coach Andy Reid said in mid June, via Adam Teicher of ESPN. “That’s OK. We’ve got other guys that will step in, step up for him at that spot until he gets back. The important thing is that he gets back and is healthy and that you don’t rush it and do something foolish with it.”

This latest news only further highlights the fact that it might still be a while before he’s ready to hit people on the gridiron.

We highlighted Houston as one of the most significant players with injuries heading into camp. The Chiefs need him back as soon as he’s able, but not at the cost of any potential setbacks that could come from pushing him into action.

Before his injury last year, Houston had 7.5 sacks, which was a low total for him through 11 games. In his previous three seasons, he racked up 43 sacks, including 22 in 2014.

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