Notes: Why Thursday was extra special for Lions rookie James Houston

We’ve already talked about the monster game rookie James Houston had on Thanksgiving in just five snaps of action on defense. It turns out there was something more behind the fire in the sixth-round pick out of Jackson State (coach Deion Sanders’ first drafted player) on the field:

Houston himself just turned 24 about two weeks ago, so this has been a great month of birthdays for the family. As pointed out by our own Erik Schlitt in the snap counts article, the recently-elevated rookie is very likely to be on the active roster for the Detroit Lions’ next game. A month ago, head coach Dan Campbell mentioned he would love to find a way to get James Houston on the active roster; now we know why.

Now, on to the rest of your weekend Notes:

• In case you were wondering why All-Pro cornerback Tre’Davious White only played two series against the Lions, Matt Parino from NYup.com dug into it and reported the Bills planned all along to keep him to a low “pitch count” of snaps in his return from a serious ACL injury.

• Kind of wild the Lions are only seventh here, considering well, you know:

• Overheard in the post-game interviews: often-disrespected left tackle Taylor Decker declares “this isn’t the F-ing Same Old Lions anymore” after taking the Bills down to the wire. The Detroit Free Press’ Dave Birkett has more on the growing confidence of the team.

• From Ben Raven at MLive, Bills quarterback Josh Allen said the team had a play ready to attack the particular coverage they saw from the Lions at the end of the game.

• Austin Bryant’s late roughing the passer was a painful one late in the fourth quarter against the Bills. Dave Birkett from the Detroit Free Press got the post-game reactions from both Bryant and head coach Dan Campbell. In the view of MLive’s Kyle Meinke, Bryant might be running out of chances in this contract year.

• This is quite the Thanksgiving Day game story from Edgerrin James (who indeed finished with 105 yards):

• Remember how the Lions were predicting the crowd at Ford Field was going to be a big one? According to Paula Pasche, the television audience was really big, too. Well, whenever the weather allowed it at least.

• Really neat sequence showing rookie safety Kerby Joseph from the front:

Then the footage from the guy trailing him: