So are you saying flaco is elite?
Keep Texans Talk Google Ad Free!
Venmo Tip Jar | Paypal Tip Jar
Thanks for your support! 🍺😎👍
Clowney, then what?
- Thread starter thunderkyss
- Start date
So are you saying flaco is elite?
aussie_texan
Veteran
God no! But his playoff play was elite
Yep, he was average at best in regular season. But he stepped it up (as is the whole team) when he needed to
revan
Waterboy
If Keenum had at least shown he could be a starting QB we wouldnt even be talking about it. The fact that we have no one at QB is what has made this debate open.
I wish there was an elite QB in this draft.
Marshall
Not pretty, but ALIVE!
But elite QBs have Superbowl Rings, Right? So no Draft prospect QBs are capable of being elite because they haven't played in any Superbowls.
OK. I'm having fun with the old ELITE QB argument here.
infantrycak
Hall of Fame
Are you living under a rock? There are very serious motivation and injury reasons which weigh against his potential.
JCTexan
Hall of Fame
The how is easy for me: it's a combination of Romeo Crennel's 3-4 defense, which I don't think Clowney fits, and the Texans wanting the best QB in this draft.
crew.
bhsman
Rookie
My last post on this, I swear:
Not sure what the point of this was other than "I can't back up anything I say so I might as well keep throwing out insults."
Don't bit about stats and DVR and then ignore those in turn, you hypocrite.
Didn't you complain about Clowney's 'hood' tendencies before? Not that being 'only' a sexist makes you look any better.
Alrighty then, moving on:
Clowney met with O'Brien at the Senior Bowl practices today.
Probably doesn't mean much, but interesting that Clowney (and Eric Ebron) were both at the practices to speak with coaches and GMs. You also see that O'Brien's mysterious assistant accompanying him and Rick Smith.
Not sure what the point of this was other than "I can't back up anything I say so I might as well keep throwing out insults."
Don't bit about stats and DVR and then ignore those in turn, you hypocrite.
Didn't you complain about Clowney's 'hood' tendencies before? Not that being 'only' a sexist makes you look any better.
Alrighty then, moving on:
Clowney met with O'Brien at the Senior Bowl practices today.
Probably doesn't mean much, but interesting that Clowney (and Eric Ebron) were both at the practices to speak with coaches and GMs. You also see that O'Brien's mysterious assistant accompanying him and Rick Smith.
(A) Clowney is the consensus, maybe unanimous top talent in the Draft.
(B) RC has indicated he's going to run a variety of D schemes and much of the time will be in nickles or dimes which indicates he'd have a couple guys (oh I dunno, maybe JJ & Clowney if he had him), in gap alignments
(C) BOB might find a second-round type guy like Mettenburger or Garoppolo that he likes as well as the more "high-profile" QB prospects. Or perhaps he trades for somebody already in the league like Brady's backup in NE, Ryan Mallet ?
Blake
MMQB
(A) Sure he is talented. But he also has question marks about desire, health, maturity.
(B) Romeo will base everything out of the 3-4 which means unless Clowney can add weight and play 3-4 DE or is agile enough to convert to OLB there are going to be huge chunks of plays that Clowney is not even on the field for.
(C) I guess anythings possible since we do not know whats going on in his head. He might bring David Carr back in to be the starter. Who knows.
Mr teX
Hall of Fame
This could seriously backfire on him, but maybe all this criticism has lit a fire under him if he plans on doing allthe drills at the combine.. I can't remember the last time a top guy did this..
TexansFTW
Veteran
I believe him 100%. The guy is a monster. If he wants to out bench everyone he can. If he wants to out duel everyone he can. If he wants to out run everyone... he probably can.
bah007
Hall of Fame
Just needs the proper motivation to unleash it all apparently.
If Romeo would make JJ play headup on an Olineman where he's got 2-gap responsibility and thereby handicapp his pass-rushing skills, then this hire would clearly be a huge mistake, therefor I'm very confidant he's not going to go strictly with a traditional 3-4 scheme. But BTW, Clowney isn't just a one-trick pony as he's also known to be a very able defender vs rushing plays, and there have been top 5 picks drafted in recent years to play as 3-4 Dlineman.
kiwitexansfan
Hall of Fame
Clowney is currently 3rd in guys I want at 1:1 behind Bridgewater and Manziel.
I like his fire to come out and compete, however I am not sure what I make of this last season he had. I would love for there to be some disclosure as to what he was thinking.
Was he playing to protect himself to make sure he would be healthy enough to be the #1 pick? If so I label him a crappy teammate.
I like his fire to come out and compete, however I am not sure what I make of this last season he had. I would love for there to be some disclosure as to what he was thinking.
Was he playing to protect himself to make sure he would be healthy enough to be the #1 pick? If so I label him a crappy teammate.
Blake
MMQB
Once he is the #1 pick, has a ton of money in the bank, where is the motivation he apparently needs going to come from?
Blake
MMQB
Just so we are on the same page, strictly a traditional 3-4 and based out of a 3-4 are 2 different things.
Marshall
Not pretty, but ALIVE!
The second contract is where the money is. That is his motivation.Once he is the #1 pick, has a ton of money in the bank, where is the motivation he apparently needs going to come from?
I'm sure he'll be asked the question in interviews, we'll know how he answered by if and how far he falls.
I hear you. Sure there's all kinds of combos of 3-4 & 4-3 with different gap alignments. Wade of course had 1-gap stuff with his 3-4 which often was a 4-3 or 5-2 while different 4-3s may have guys in the gap while at the time with a pure 2-gap NT in the same formation.
bhsman
Rookie
People have looked at what he did with the Patriots in the early 2000's and noted that while the NT and one of the DEs were strictly 2-gap, he would use one of the DEs (Seymour) in a pass-rushing capacity. Watt could easily fill that role.
Can you imagine if he said something like, "Getting to the NFL is just the beginning. My goal is to be part of the best defense the NFL has ever seen. If I get the opportunity to play next to Jj Watt & Brian Cushing.... that's almost assured."
revan
Waterboy
Wow he needs to hire you for his PR. If he said that ANDKeenum would have shown to be able to take over the reigns we probably wouldn't even be talking about the first round.
Texecutioner
Hall of Fame
People still think Clowney is a good option. Lol!
The most gifted player to come out in years and the best natural talent in this years draft...Nah anyone that even considers him at 1.1 is an idiot.
bhsman
Rookie
You should probably take off that cowboy hat already, it appears to be cutting off the blood to your brain.
Texecutioner
Hall of Fame
The most gifted player to come out in years and the best natural talent in this years draft...Nah anyone that even considers him at 1.1 is an idiot.
Yeah, they are. Especially Houstonians that lived through dealing with an over hyped lazy coddled player for years in Mario Williams. Clowney is much worse considering the reports. Mario didn't pack it in on his last season in college when the spotlight was on him the most. Clowney straight folded this year and showed everyone that he isn't "a gamer" and that he doesn't work well through adversity. I've seen a ton of these "talented" pass rushers over the years like Mario, Vernhan Gholston, and many others have all of the size and talent in the world and totally become "let downs" and none of the guys I'm thinking of had nearly as much negative reports about their character and discipline than what I've read about Clowney.
All you and others can do is talk about talent as if that is the only measuring thing to consider. That is extremely disingenuous to the history of the NFL draft and when you have a low pick like that, the last thing you do is waste it on some guy who has motivational problems and lacks a killer instinct to dominate a game every week. You seem to be one of these guys that just gets all caught up in the hype on ESPN and all of the highlights they like to show when they want to hype someone up really high. I'll pay attention to the things that I know will make a guy a solid player like his work ethic, his drive to be the best, his goals, his loyalty, and his love for the sport. Talent is a no brainer. Every player considered in the first round has a ton of talent, but I wouldn't think twice about a guy with a ton of talent that has all types of discipline problems and loafs half the time. Clowney has already shown us this on the main stages of his career in college. I've never seen a guy do this little when he was hyped up as much as Clowney was before the season. He totally "choked" the entire season away literally. I know that Mcnair won't want Clowney and I highly doubt that O'Brient will push for this guy either. As a matter of fact I hope that Clowney ends up in our division on the Jags or the Titans.
You should probably take off that cowboy hat already, it appears to be cutting off the blood to your brain.
Boy you really made a convincing argument there. Lame.
Texecutioner
Hall of Fame
I can tell you that I haven't read a single statement of yours that has any substance as of yet on this subject. I've just seen little lame insults and that is about it. You haven't made one single attempt to explain why drafting "talent" and disregarding everything else is the way to go. Luckily all NFL GM's don't think that way and Rick Smith certainly doesn't. Smith is actually very good in the first round and I'm fairly certain he isn't going to draft Clowney. And when Clowney ends up elsewhere it will be interesting to see all of the folks acting like they knew it all along that are drewling all over this guy right now all because of ESPN's hype machine.
bhsman
Rookie
Lighten up, Francis.
It's just that a lot of the arguments you brought up have been hashed out and argued back and forth for awhile now; it's not so much a dismissal of the points of your argument...just that we've read them all before. The fact that you just regurgitated a bunch of tired arguments.
If I were to address your argument directly, I would say that a lot of your points seemed to be an exaggeration of the 'effort' argument and don't address stuff like:
-Clowney's minor injuries;
-Motivations about not getting injured (especially when you consider his former teammate, Marcus Lattimore); and
-His newfound fame (or infamy) causing him to garner more attention from offensive gameplans, causing him to be double-teamed/chipped a lot (and before you get in a huff and say this is an excuse, go back a few pages and ctrl+f for my name where I did a breakdown of his UNC and UT games from this year and point this out) or have the play run away from him entirely
And this is assume the 'effort' argument is TRUE! Are we seriously going to a believe that a guy that, despite the aforementioned game-planning (and you could argue his reputation warps the entire offense to deal with him as a plus) he still nearly doubled his QB hits from last year, was near the top of the NCAA in pressures, played nearly 80 percent of his team's defensive snaps, etc. And even then, because of all that excess attention, his teammates (Quarles and Sutton) racked up sacks from leaving them with single/minimal blocking while dealing with Clowney. I'd want Clowney because it will probably be the single-best thing we could do to improve Watt's play and career by giving him a major threat on the other side of the line, and thus improve the defense (and, by extension, the team) as a whole.
The argument that Clowney was lazy is, ironically, just as lazy as the accusations. Watch the UNC and Tennessee games and you can't tell me Clowney has effort problems. Please.
EDIT: I would also say that a lot of the Clowney arguments (not yours in particular, for what it's worth) sound similar to the arguments people had against taking Alshon Jeffery in 2011; having Hopkins now is great, but we see that those arguments had the same problem: it was a lot of media hearsay and very little tape-watching.
infantrycak
Hall of Fame
Putting aside the effort issue, Clowney's injury may not be minor. In fact it could be severely limiting given his position.
bhsman
Rookie
The bone spurs are only an issue if he puts off surgery; a team drafting him will know about it and probably require him to have surgery after the Combine (if not SCAR's pro day).
infantrycak
Hall of Fame
That is not correct according to our resident doc and medical literature on the issue. The surgery eliminates the current bone spurs but does not address the underlying cause.
This is probably a question for C-N-D, but do you have any idea what the underlying causes could be?
Dishman
Miss Ya Blue
From WebMD.
Sounds like it's an issue Clowney has dealt with since high school. Seems like it could be an issue again down the road, too. From his Wiki page:
Looking that up I read a little bit about Clowneys rib injury and Spurrier's comments. Disappointing when viewed thru the lens of Ben Tate playing out the season with cracked ribs.
kingtexan
All Pro
if Clowney puts up the kind of numbers he is expected to at the combine, and interviews well, he could lock down the #1 overall pick. Interesting thing would be to see what the Texans would do if they took Clowney, and then Carr was sitting there at the first of the second round. I say take him ...
infantrycak
Hall of Fame
As Dishman linked it is often ligament related so you are in the pool of plantar fasciitis and turf toe - things which are deadly to initial burst players especially out of a stance.
Gary Walker went from repeat pro-bowler with 33 sacks in 4 seasons, to turf toe and 3 seasons of injury with 1.5 sacks then out of the league. That terrifies me with Clowney motivation issues totally aside.
Add on top of that what we have learned from CnD about compensatory injuries in other conversations.
Dishman
Miss Ya Blue
Forgot about this factor and with his injury history he may decide to make himself a late scratch before a game with a divisional opponent.
powda
The bridge between stupid and useless is short.
People keep talking about the Manziel hype train growing and growing but Im inclined to agree with you. After the combine when clowney puts up freakish numbers his stock will skyrocket. He's basically been zeus on the football field his entire life --- minus the past season. Hell, I can remember seeing a tv show about him years ago when he first came out of high school.
I don't say this to convince anyone here we should select him. I have the same concerns you all do about his motivation...we have first hand experience in Houston with mario on what its like to draft a demi god athlete who doesn't work at his craft. Im beyond my previous stance that lining him up next to watt would be amazing. At this point I think it's inevitable we draft a qb.
What im projecting instead (wanting maybe?) is more trade leverage for the Texans post combine/sc pro day. If just one player can establish himself as the cream of the crop we have more room to manoeuvre. Right now I see little reason for anyone to trade with us at 1.1.
Texecutioner
Hall of Fame
And for some strange reason you completely ignore all of it because of being star struck by measurables. Study the history of the NFL and how many huge busts there are every year. I've seen a ton of these 6'6 and 6'7 guys that teams get enamored with as pass rushers because of their freakish size and speed for that size. But at the end of the day, none of that matters a whole lot if the guy doesn't have an endless motor. If you are going to be a pass rusher you "have to have" an endless motor. There is no in between or you will be an average player. Pass rushers have to be very well conditioned to bang on every play and get to that QB. That is not something I will ever compromise on when picking a high draft pick at that position. You can draft a ton of guys with size and measurables. Give me the 2nd round talent that is going to go balls to the wall on every down. That will be the guy that comes up big in the important games while the guy who loafs will disappoint more often in the big moments.
This double team crap is the worst stuff being put out there about Clowney. It's the same stupid excuses that people used to make for Mario Williams for years. Bonafied pass rushers find ways to be effective with double teams. You think guys like Mathis aren't double teamed? They are a lot, and they still make plays. They don't' all of a sudden fall off for an entire season and produce some pathetic 4 sacks and disappear often in games. JJ Watt makes himself productive all over the field, because he never stops going on every play. Double teams be damned, JJ is still going to be effective on the field and make offenses adjust to him.
You speak as if Clowney is the only pass rusher in the world who could help Watt!! What is with this ridiculous idea that we can only get CLowney to help Watt?? There are guys all over the draft that could help Watt out. You guys talk as if Clowney is the only prospect that can enhance Watt's effectiveness on the field for the next 3 years or something. I'm sure Watt himself would rather have a guy that he can count on, on every snap.
No, it's called taking history and using it as a tool to make smart decisions and wise investments. The Texans aren't in a position to be making sloppy decisions after a 2-14 season. They need guys they can count on. Dismissing the entire history of the attitudes of different types of players is one of the most ignorant things someone could argue against going into a draft.
Last edited:
The Pencil Neck
Hall of Fame
I pretty much agree with this entire post (which scares me because we so often don't see eye-to-eye) but I wanted to piggy-back on this thought.
Every year, there's a Vernon Gholston, Adam Curry, Harvey, Okoye, Gaines Adams, etc. These guys have insane numbers and look like they're going to be absolute beasts.
What separates most of these guys from someone like a Watt, a Justin Houston, a Jared Allen, is that motor, that determination.
So when I see someone like a Clowney, the first thing I want to know about is his motor. From the limited tape I've seen of this guy, I do not see one. He makes his move and if the play gets past him, he's usually done and walking where someone like a Watt (or even an Earl Mitchell) is running full-bore after the play trying to catch the guy with the ball.
I saw more drive and determination in Mario Williams' in his final college season... and he didn't seem to have a lot.
So... for me... I'm not on the Clowney (or Barr) bandwagon.
I just don't see what everyone is hyped up about.