Card: Topps Heritage 2006
Acquired: TTM 2009, Texans Blitz

At 6’4″, 306 Shaun Cody was a member of  USC, originally drafted by the Detroit Lions in the second round of the 2005 draft.  A 4 year starter for the Trojans, he was a consensus All- American and had 21 sacks, 8 blocked field goals and 31.5 total tackles for losses for the team.  The Lions slotted him in at defensive tackle but he’d only start 11 games over 4 years, unable to scale the team’s depth chart playing under 3 different defensive coaches.  Detroit would expose him during free agency in 2009 and the Texans would sign him to play left defensive tackle with Travis Johnson on the way out. In those 2 seasons for the Texans Shaun has made .5 sacks, 1 pass defensed, and 33 tackles.

After the Texans decided to blow up their defense and shift back to the 3-4, new defensive coordinator Wade Phillips is adamant that he can rotate Shaun Cody in at nose tackle as an undersized speed rusher (in the model of Jay Ratliff from Dallas), and has gone so far as to sign him to a 2 year extension in 2011.  A high motor lineman with a fast first step, the hope is Shaun’s best days are still ahead of him,  but he needs to continue to bulk up and improve on his fundamentals. At the time of this post he was being employed in a platoon with Earl Mitchell.

Shaun has a tattoo of ‘SC’ on his bicep that is in the same typography as USC. While it was rumored that this was a tribute to his former Alma Mater, it indeed has been reported it is merely an abbreviation of his name.