One playoff game. Against arguably the best offensive line in the league. And where they got out-coached and out-played all over. If you think the front seven is bad now, wait till you see it without Clowney.
It seems to me like: - Colts o-line will continue to be good - Texans coaches will continue to be bad In light of that, if you could trade Clowney for a 1st, then why not do it? Or a fair package. Otherwise, tag him.
The more reason why you should want the defense to be better, not worse. You don't get better on defense just by just getting rid of you 2nd best defender. Who is coming in to make the defense better? What other DE do they have that is chasing down WRs from behind 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. I'm all about the tag. But if you trade him, you better be getting someone else coming in who is as good or better.
I'm all for franchising him, but RAC has to figure out a way to use our personnel better than he has. There is absolutely zero excuse or good reason for why our pass rush seems to sputter against good teams. There is also zero excuse for how he's basically turned Mercilus into a useless piece that gets used completely wrong. This guy is a former first round pick who has shown he can be an elite pass rusher consistently.
Which is part of the problem, really. Can't get pressure on the QB so we have to chase them down when they've already got a first down... not the job of a DE but still... with pressure, come less completions. TBF, I can't put everything on our front seven when our DB had been absolutely trash last season, especially in the playoff game. But when you are the heart of what the defense is touted on, you ABSOLUTELY must perform at your peak in the playoffs. We didn't do that and we lost.
This is why I like what the Packers are doing. Preston Smith and Za'Darius Smith give them 80% of the production for half the cost. This also allowed them to sign Amos.
The market was set with Donald and Mack last summer. Outside of Gaines giving him a $130M - $90Mish guaranteed, franchising was inevitable IMO.
But the market is going up, not down. You could argue that Clowney is worth more now than he did a week ago.
Sure but if the Texans didn't think he was worth the market price then, the market going up doesn't really change anything.
I don’t know about cutting him since worse comes to worse he sits out and we won’t have to pay him anyways. But I’d be down to trade him even at a lower cost. If he plays next season, I think it’ll be the last time we see him in a Texans uni.
