I don't recall Cedric Houston ever showing much of anything. I'd rather have Johnny Hector in his last year.
Guys Cedric Houston was most likely going to be our RB of the future had he not decided to quit. In the limited time he played he looked very good for a 6th rounder. Just a shame his heart wasn't in it.
i must've missed something with all this "houston lost desire" stuff??? i thought he had to end his career because of a back injury....
I don't know where on earth you heard anything about retiring for back problems. Every article posted about him leaving the team said it was for personal reasons.
I didn't remember the following article from the NYT after Thomas Jones was injured last year. It seems ever his mamma doesn't know why he won't play football anymore. August 15, 2007 With Jets' Jones Out, Houston Enters the Conversation By KAREN CROUSE HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Aug. 14 — When Jets tailback Thomas Jones crumpled to the turf with an injury to his right calf muscle during practice Sunday, some of his teammates said they thought of Cedric Houston, the running back who abruptly left the team on the eve of training camp. They were not the only ones. In Houston’s hometown, Clarendon, Ark., Lynette Houston heard that Jones had been hurt and immediately called her son Cedric. She said he had returned to Knoxville, where he starred at Tennessee, to weigh his options. “Ced,” she said she told him, “That was your opportunity right there.” His response, she said, was a dispassionate, “Well.” Recounting the conversation during a telephone interview Tuesday, Lynette Houston laughed ruefully, saying, “I don’t know what Ced has in his mind.” If Houston, who averaged 3.3 yards in 113 carries last season with one start, had stayed for camp, he might have been in the starting lineup for the Jets, who play host to the Minnesota Vikings on Friday in their second preseason game. In Tuesday’s practice, Leon Washington, who started eight games last year, was the only running back who stood out. “When Ced left home for New York, he had high hopes,” Lynette Houston said. If Houston had fallen out of love with football, his mother said she was not aware of it. She said that during the off-season, she watched him carefully monitor his diet, eschewing red meat for fish. She said he appeared to be in great shape and was in good spirits when he left for New York a few days before the July 26 reporting date for camp. The first indication she received that Houston was unhappy was when he called her on the eve of camp and told her he was done. “Done with what?” she said, to which she said he replied, “Done playing football.” “He can tell me that until he’s blue in the face, and I won’t believe it,” Lynette Houston said. “The way he did it, it doesn’t make any sense. I wish he would go back. I believe he needs football. He’s got to be bored.” She said that when she asked her son what he planned to do, he talked about completing work on his degree in sociology. Lynette Houston said he did not sound as if he was entertaining any second thoughts about leaving football. “He says he is fine,” she said. “I tell him as long as he’s not doing drugs or getting into trouble, I’ll support him in whatever he does. If he does have second thoughts, I’m hoping he’s not too proud to go back and admit he made a mistake like that.” Jets Coach Eric Mangini said he had not spoken to the 25-year-old Houston since he left. In the wake of Jones’s injury, he was asked if he would consider reaching out to Houston to see if he had any interest in coming back. “We’re always open to any possibility,” Mangini said. “But with that, those are personal decisions, and I respect the decision he made.” At least one player on the Jets has called Houston to see how he was doing and received a text message back from him saying, “I’m fine.” Jones is also said to be in good spirits. “He’s confident that he’ll be ready to go for the first game,” Jones’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. Rosenhaus confirmed that the injury was a strained calf muscle. The Jets, who open their regular season at home against the New England Patriots on Sept. 9, have refused to address Jones’s condition beyond saying it involves his right lower leg and that he is working to return as soon as he can. Calf strains have not been a common malady in N.F.L. training camps this year, except for the Giants, who have had three players sidelined with them. Fatigue, improper stretching and dehydration are among the common causes. Jones had not been touched when he was hurt trying to plant his right foot in front of linebacker Brad Kassell during a one-on-one drill. The injury was not unlike the hamstring pull that cornerback Justin Miller sustained days earlier during an intrasquad scrimmage. The Jets’ strength and conditioning coach, Sal Alosi, is in his first year, but it does not seem he has to worry about experiencing the same fate as the Yankees’ first-year strength coach, Marty Miller, who was fired after four players were sidelined early in the season with hamstring injuries. “I don’t think having injuries at a certain time causes you to assess it at that point,” Mangini said. “Sometimes I think that just happens, where you get that block of injuries in one period.”
What sucked is that Derrick Ward was on our practice squad and we dumped him around the time of Houston leaving. Too bad
+1 We were lucky to get Kerry out of that deal. Not too many times you come out with a probowl level talent. Anybody can look back and wish they had gotten more draft day steals . . . No team gets them all right.
