Lamarr Houston Oakland Raiders Defensive Player of the Year

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Lamarr Houston Oakland Raiders Defensive Player of the Year

Postby blazin1 » Mon Jan 28, 2013 7:24 pm

Whilst the Raiders might have had a bad year overall defensively, they certainly had some stand out players. In a poll of Raider Nation Times writers, the best of them was defensive end Lamarr Houston.

He won the award by one vote from linebacker Philip Wheeler (I also thought Desmond Bryant was on the mix…), but deservedly so. Houston’s all round performance and consistency throughout the season were matched by his unrelenting motor and willingness to leave it all out on the field in every game.

He tied the Raiders lead for sacks on the year with 4.0, but in terms of sheer quarterback pressures he applied considerably more (35), than the next nearest defender (Desmond Bryant , 20).

Adding to that, he was an outstanding run defender, with the ability to both set and hold the edge, and also crash inside to make tackles when needed. Whilst Houston was a fairly good pass rusher, he was a truly dominant run defender.

He has been versatile enough to move inside to tackle in passing situations, and also (amazingly!) graded out positively when he was asked to drop into coverage. He had a monster game against Jacksonville (he was named AFC Defensive Player of the week), where six of his eight tackles were at or close to the line of scrimmage, and finished the season off against the Chargers where he was a one man wrecking crew, making 12 tackles and a sack. Defensive linemen have no business making double digit tackles in a game.

Not only did he make 69 tackles over the season, leading the defensive line by some way, but the vast majority of those tackles were for little or no gain, making them a very meaningful statistic. On other occasions Houston could be seen making tackles 30 or 40 yards downfield. His motor just never stopped.

When you talk about the Raiders having a core of quality young players to build around, Houston is right at the top of that group, and is very deserving as Raider Nation Times defensive player of the year.

LINK: http://raidernationtimes.com/article.php?id=9572
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