By Trey Huguley 

 People stop freaking out. Yes, it stinks to be losing DeMeco Ryans for the season, but it isn’t the end of the world.  In case you missed it somehow, at the end of the first half Ryans fall down without contact as he tore his Achilles tendon; a terrible injury that can keep a player out for months and can even threaten careers.

Granted, Ryans is the leader of the defense and makes a lot of big plays, but there a number of reasons why it won’t be detrimental to the team or the outcome of our season to play with out him.

1.) Pollard Becomes the Leader – Pollard has been a second leader on the defense and a strong voice that has been waiting on an opportunity to lead his team. He is an animated guy with the ability to fire up his teammates and keep them fired up to make big hits and big plays (despite his poor coverage ability). With Ryans out, Pollard become the defense’s leader by default and will be a damn good one.  It’s not that Ryans doesn’t fire up the defense, he just does it in a different way. Due to Pollard’s explosive influence, there is a chance we will see a more fired up defense who will want to win in DeMeco’s name.

2.) Darryl Sharpton is Great – In pre-season, rookie middle linebacker Darryl Sharpton stepped up and made some BIG TIME plays. He may be young, but the kid out of Miami is fast, good sized and smart. Is he ready to be a starting NFL linebacker? I’m not sure, but he is certainly capable and talented enough to be a big part of the defense and help pick up the slack in Ryans’ absence. If he can get over his nagging ankle issues, Sharpton should be a viable substitution while Ryans is out.

3.) Spark the Other Players – While definitely not a good thing, maybe this injury is something that has been needed to spark the rest of the defense and get them playing up to their potential. Knowing he is out, may get stuck in the heads of Williams, Cushing and the rest of the defense and give them subconscious reason to step up and make big plays since Ryans won’t be able to.  

4.) Can the Defense Get Worse? – I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I don’t know if the defense can get any worse. This injury will shake things up a little, get other guys playing better, give new guys an opportunity to show what they have and give the Texans pathetic defense a little bit of inspiration.

Luckily (if you can use that word), this injury happened right before the bye week, giving the Texans two weeks to figure out what the plan in spending the rest of the season without Ryans. They still need to figure out what in the hell they are going to do about their secondary too, so there should be a lot of attention on the defense over the bye.

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