Jadeveon Clowney Selection Still Right Choice for Houston Texans
Visions of defensive end J.J. Watt and outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney beating offensive linemen in ways that aren't safe for work swam through the heads of Texans fans following Clowney's selection with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft.
While the preseason offered some clue as to Clowney's potential, a knee injury quickly sidelined him in the first game of the season. While Clowney fought to come back, his reemergence was short-lived, and the Texans put him on IR after 146 largely unproductive snaps. Clowney did more to raise awareness for how horrendous the turf conditions at NRG Stadium are than he did to scare opposing quarterbacks.
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"He told me on the field when it happened, he was just like, 'Bro, I just jumped, came down and hit one of the holes on the field,'" said D.J. Swearinger. "There are a few holes in the grass, so he said he thought he stepped on one of those holes and got hurt."
However, one season is not a career. One injury does not often define a player when everything is said and done. Our question going forward is not what Clowney's overall value to the Texans was in 2014, but what will Clowney's value be in future seasons? Our second question is: What did the Texans miss out on by picking Clowney over the other available options?
Clowney versus Khalil Mack
If we're looking for the best defensive player to this point in the 2014 draft, it's probably another player the Texans reportedly considered with the No. 1 pick: Raiders outside linebacker Khalil Mack.
| Jadeveon Clowney | 146 | 0 | 3 | -2.0 | -2.2 |
| Khalil Mack | 854 | 3 | 34 | +26.6 | +32.6 |
If one is to believe PFF's ratings, Mack has been one of the best run-stopping linebackers in the NFL and has also added some secondary—if not elite—production as a pass-rusher.
Houston's defense definitely could have used a player performing like Mack has this season. The only non-Watt player on Houston's roster with a PFF pass rush grade over 0 is backup inside linebacker Akeem Dent. Clowney's replacement at outside linebacker, Whitney Mercilus, has been fairly good at setting the edge but obviously nowhere near Mack's level.
Ultimately, I believe that Clowney has a much higher ceiling than Mack as a pass-rusher, which is why I thought this was the right move at the time. However, I can't deny that adding Mack to the Texans this season probably would have raised them into near-playoff territory rather than the near-.500 territory they've treaded on with Clowney hurt.
Regardless, I don't think it's fair to say Clowney is worse than Mack when we haven't seen what Clowney can do on the field. I would bet that a healthy Clowney can out-rush a healthy Mack.
Clowney versus quarterback
This was more of a false dichotomy in my mind. I believed that Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles was solidly behind Minnesota's Teddy Bridgewater and Cleveland's Johnny Manziel, and the Texans could have traded up for either of the latter two if they'd wanted to. They didn't believe in either of them.
To throw fuel on the fire, Bortles has mixed flashes of brilliance into an abysmal overall performance for the Jaguars. Obviously, Texans head coach Bill O'Brien would have had a different way of bringing Bortles along, but when you look at all that has gone wrong in Jacksonville, it's hard to believe that Bortles would be significantly better than what the Texans have thrown out there this year.
| Ryan Fitzpatrick | n/a | 317 (14) | 4.8% (13) | 55.7 (21) |
| Teddy Bridgewater | 1-32 | -332 (40) | -28.4% (36) | 43.0 (34) |
| Derek Carr | 2-36 | -264 (36) | -20.2% (33) | 39.1 (35) |
| Blake Bortles | 1-3 | -650 (42) | -39.0% (41) | 23.1 (40) |
| Johnny Manziel | 1-22 | 17 (DNQ) | 19.2% (DNQ) | 91.6 (DNQ) |
I'll give the Texans this: They appear to have been right that none of the rookie quarterbacks would have played significantly better than what they were able to cobble together with Ryan Fitzpatrick. Houston's model definitely has less hope for the future, and I think most of these rookies could have done better throwing to wideouts DeAndre Hopkins and Andre Johnson than they have with the receivers on their teams. But, for one season, Houston was right.
That doesn't mean that trading up to snag Manziel or Bridgewater won't be regarded as a mistake in future years, of course. Especially since the "success" of this season figures to only entrench the Texans into Unsure of Quarterback Hell, given where their first-round pick will be.
But that's not really Clowney's fault.
Clowney versus himself
Here's the strongest argument against Clowney's future: Clowney himself.
We're now two years past the point where Clowney introduced himself to the American public conscious with his vicious hit on Michigan's Vincent Smith in the Outback Bowl. Clowney's junior season left prospect analysts wanting, as he finished with just three sacks and 40 tackles. On top of that, his work ethic was criticized by a quickly backpedalling South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier.
“It was OK,” Spurrier said, when asked about Clowney's work ethic. "It wasn't like Marcus Lattimore, you know, every player is a little different."
Then an unnamed Texans source made a call during the nadir of Houston's season to discuss that the Texans were disappointed with Clowney's inability to get back on the field, per NFL.com's Ian Rapoport:
I can understand why fans are fed up with Clowney. In our rapidly changing media world, where the hype in the hype-to-production ratio only grows for dedicated fans on a yearly basis, it is easy to look at where Clowney has been the last two seasons and believe that there is a trend and a reason for that trend.
On the other hand, his poor junior season at South Carolina barely dinged him in Football Outsiders' SackSEER projections, knocking him down to a rating better than 94.9 percent of the field. Clowney showcased his pure athletic talent in the preseason, beating solid NFL tackles like Jared Veldheer. Spurrier swears up and down that Clowney's production in that final season was limited by opposing teams scheming against him rather than a down year.
I can understand why people are tired of hearing about Clowney given the lack of on-field substance, but the truth as of right now is that we have no reason to believe the NFL production won't be great when Clowney is healthy.
The "right" decision
What really makes a pick the right decision?
There is so much hindsight that goes into a poor No. 1 overall pick that it's hard to really tell what could have been known at the time of the draft. Drafting quarterback David Carr with the first overall pick, obviously, did not work out for the Texans in 2002. But was Carr a bad pick? Would he have done better with a different coaching staff? Would he have had better pocket presence had he not played behind Houston's abysmal offensive lines in 2002 and 2003?
My view is that we can only say whether a pick was a good decision based on what we knew at the time. Too many things—development, injury, off-field situations, factors that will be hidden under the team books from a private detective—are unknowns after a player is drafted. The Texans have again run into those issues with Clowney.
But 100 times out of 100, if you give a general manager a reel of Clowney's college tape, along with a list of his physical attributes and various workout times, that player will be a certain first-round pick. Make sure there are no significant long-term injury risks or off-field concerns, and he's probably a lock to go in the top three. Place him in a year where there are no elite quarterback prospects, and, well, you've got a strong contender for a No. 1 overall pick.
Clowney very well may fail as a pick. I don't think we can totally ignore the smoke we get from anonymously sourced comments about his work ethic. Mack certainly has had the better rookie season.
But that doesn't make picking Clowney the wrong decision. And, if I had to bet on an outcome, it'd be that a healthy Clowney will make all this media jibber jabber that throws him in the circle of Steve Emtman die as of September 2015.
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