Dutchrudder
Hall of Fame
Jesus christ you guys are literally like mouthpieces for sports radio around here.
Lol, lets just play this leverage thing out to the end shall we..............
the Texans...... if they were real a-holes and intent on sticking it to Clowney, could've franchised the hell out of him for 2 years, let him leave after that for a 3rd compensatory pick, kept all their future picks in the process.... and would've saved at minimum 10+ million in the process.......That is, if they were real a-holes...but under no circumstances do they lose with JD holding his "leverage". Even if he comes back & "lays like a rug" for 2 years on the tag, Clowney's doing more damage to himself with other teams around the league than he is to the Texans FO.
Clowney's "leverage" was not signing the tender until he was traded to a place he wanted to go.......which if he played that out all the way to the end under the Texans FO a-hole scenario would've either cost him upwards of 20+ million for 2 years ............that he wasn't going to recoup. even if he comes back week 10, he's likely not putting up substantial numbers for anyone to pay a significant amount of anything for him....he's also 2 years older & closer to that knee eventually blowing out on him. Where is the "leverage" in that stance lol?
Fact is, neither of these scenarios plays well for either party. The Texans capitulated & lost, but lets not act like JD's "leverage" was a significant factor in that...His greatest leverage if you call it that was that the FO didn't care too much about losing him.....but that's more apathy than anything lol.
You must not understand what "leverage" means. Clowney could decline any trade he wanted by not signing the tender, which he was rumored to have done for the Dolphins proposed trade. Whether that's true or not, the scenario is still the same, he was able to dictate the destination team of any trade involving him because he never signed his tender. His "leverage" was that he could essentially tell the Texans the few teams he would be willing to go if they were intent on trading him. That narrows his market, reduces his value and forces the team to play a bad hand. That is absolutely significant to the situation.
The leverage the Texans had was as you stated, lost salary, veteran years accrued and potentially image issues when marketing himself to a new team. That's why I said the Texans should have waited it out this game of chicken. If the money, playing time, etc is worth that much to him, (I think it is) then he would definitely come back to the team at some point. Nobody expects him to quit on the team and play half-assed in a contract year; if he did that, he would only be hurting his future value, which was the entire point of this situation for him. Him leaving next year in free agency likely nets them a 3rd comp pick anyways. I think the Texans caved too early because they had some leverage to exert too, but instead they paid 11.2 million for a definite 3rd round pick, Mingo (who was going to be cut by Seattle that evening) and 2nd year OLB Martin. That's not a good return no matter how you slice it.