Blankenship Is Out, and Houston's Secondary Has No Margin Left

Reed Blankenship went down in the second quarter against Jacksonville in London with a concussion and is currently listed as out. He leads the team with 46 tackles through seven games — by some distance the most productive tackler in that secondary. Losing him now, with 11 games left and Houston two games out of a wild-card spot, is not a minor rotation question.

The timing compounds an already thin situation back there. Jalen Pitre was ruled out for the London game with a shoulder injury, which meant Houston played that afternoon without two of its three safeties. Calen Bullock is active, and Chad Cota is atop the depth chart at the position, but neither has logged the kind of production this season that would make the Blankenship absence feel manageable. The defense was already operating without Henry To'oTo'o at linebacker — the $16 million extension that disappeared in Week 1 — and with Clowney's availability uncertain heading into this stretch.

The offensive side of this team has gotten most of the attention lately, reasonably so given the Harrison trade and Dell's return. But the defense was supposed to be the identity this organization paid to build. Right now it is running short on the people it paid to build it with.