Lions vs Bucs inactives: Why James Houston still not playing

Here we go. We're less than two hours away from the Detroit Lions hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the divisional round game. Just one more home game for the Lions and if they win, they'll head to the NFC Championship game. Here's who they'll have to do it without:

• James Houston
• Steven Gilmore
• Hendon Hooker (Emergency 3rd QB)
• Charles Harris
• Brodric Martin
• Kalif Raymond
• Tracy Walker 

The Lions activated James Houston earlier in the week, but Lions head coach Dan Campbell made it seem like he still wasn't ready to return to the field for the Lions just yet in his Friday presser. That turns out to be the case here on Sunday. Houston will be inactive again. 

Why does this keep happening? It seems like this has been a weekly thing. Houston has been back and practicing for the Lions since December 28th. This is the fourth game that he could have theoretically played in and the Lions won't make him active. 

This might upset you and you might even be ready to blame the Lions if they lose after not activating Houston. Don't do that. That is not what is happening here. The Lions aren't stubbornly holding him out for some reason. They feel he's physically not ready to play football yet. 

“Yeah, I mean, we’ve still got to gauge if we feel like he will be ready." Lions head coach Dan Campbell on Friday. "And I know this, he’s better, he’s a lot better this week than he was last week and that’s the progression of it, right? Is every week, he should start to get his legs back under him, feel good about it and we’ve got to decide if we really believe that if he goes, is it – are we going to get the production relative to who we’re sitting for the rest of the team? So, that’s kind of where we’re at. But I know this, he looks a ton better. I know he wants to go, I mean, who wouldn’t? So – but he’s done a nice job coming back.”

The Lions have brought a bunch of their guys back from IR and played them. The biggest difference between them and Houston is that Houston is healing from a broken bone. He fractured his ankle in Week 2. That's not something that's easy to come back from and the Lions don't feel as though he can be effective at this moment, but maybe he will be at some moment. 

That's why they activated him on literally the last day they could have done it. There was a solid chance that Houston's season was going to be completely over just a few days ago and the Lions decided that it would be worth it to keep seeing if he's able to play later. That's all that's happening. This is not an Isaiah Buggs type thing and James Houston isn't in the dog house or anything like that. They felt he wasn't physically ready to return to the field after returning from a fractured ankle. The thing he puts all of his weight on and needs to move around and be explosive. 

As for the Buccaneers, here's who they'll be missing on Sunday:

• John Wofford
• Patrick Laird
• Rakim Jarrett
• Brandon Walton
• Silas Dzansi
• J.J. Russell
• Markees Watts