In the two games Mercilus took Clowney's spot he got 5.5 sacks! He seems to be faster and fit the position better for now. Keep him there and move Clowney somewhere else.
put him at strong safety. he is probably faster on one leg than rahimm the nightmare moore. I agree. Romeo has to figure it out. i expect the opposing coaches we go up against will not have their qbs take 3 and 5 step drops. everything is going to be quick releases until the texans remember how to tackle.
Mercilus is a good guy and I'm happy he is doing well. That being said: 1. Both games were against Jacksonville and Tennessee. The two worst teams they have played so far. 2. Both those games were against horrible running offenses. That has always been Whitney's weakness. 3. When Mercilus filled in for Clowney last year. He had only 5 sacks and 4 of them came in two games. 4. Mercilus graded out to a 3.9 yesterday. Clowney had a similar score in the Panthers game. I'm all for getting him more playing time but don't be surprised if he doesn't have a game like this the rest of the season.
Don't post much here, but figure now's as good a time as any.... Someone's pointed this out already, I'm sure, but usually, for all the fanfare 3-4 defense can get (especially for all its exotic fronts), it really only works when you have good interior linemen to begin with. Those 3-4 linemen have to be space-eaters and gap-pluggers, primarily. Anything you get from them in terms of quarterback sacks and/or pressures should be secondary, because they have to keep offensive guards off the linebackers, so they're free to attack plays and make tackles. J.J. Watt, I always believed, was more of a 4-3 than a 3-4 defensive end. Not any slight at Watt (clearly, wherever he plays, he's a force), but after you find out what kind of players you have, and what they do best, you've got to tailor you schemes around that. Watt generally spends as much time in the opposing backfields as does the q.b. s and running backs. He's thinking "sack"...no problem with that, because he can do that...but at defensive end in a 3-4, he often exposes the linebackers behind him to linemen they haven't been able to beat yet. Watt's talent is revelatory and generational, so it would seem fairly easy to figure out what you could do to make things a bit easier for him. He's getting the lion's share of attention from the opposing offensive line, but nobody behind him can benefit from that. The strength of a 3-4 defense has to be it's linebackers. If they can't play in space, then you can't play that defense. And this is where Jadaveon Clowney comes in. Hard to know how this works with him, seeing as little of him as we have in actual games, but just by virtue of what he was drafted to do (rush the passer), I wouldn't mind seeing either a move to a 4-3 front (with him and Watt as defensive ends, who could line up anywhere), or acquiring some actual 3-4 linemen who could play gap techniques to see just how much of a shambles your linebacking corps is. I've love to see what those two would look like, whatever scheme you're running, if they've got the right complementary pieces around them. Whitney Mercilus might be a better pass-rushing linebacker than Clowney is, but you can't really know until you get the front settled, and they play together for awhile. I know Vince Wilfork was brought in to help that happen, but he needs some help. He's not the force he was in New England for so many years. Strange as it is to say, Clowney is still a raw talent. Gauging him will take a little time, but he reminds me of Mario Williams a little bit. Supremely gifted physically, but seemingly still learning how to play...and specifically, how to play as a 3-4 buffalo linebacker. Williams at least had a collegiate season or two to see where he was as a player (end or linebacker), even if he was still taken higher than he needed to be, for what the Texans needed at the time (either a franchise quarterback, or a whole lot of bodies to replace the ones that couldn't play).... Still, this is all going to come down to personnel decisions to me. Keeping Watt is a no-brainer, so what do you do with the defensive scheme? I wouldn't be at all opposed to standing Watt up and getting some true 3-4 linemen.... ...I mean, as long we're spitballing here....
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Mercilus is playing his natural position. The position they gave him the contract extension for. <a href="https://t.co/2QlvggAzLq">https://t.co/2QlvggAzLq</a></p>— PDS (@PatDStat) <a href="https://twitter.com/PatDStat/status/661198650366783489">November 2, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">One thing that stood out defensively for the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Texans?src=hash">#Texans</a> was them getting to the football. Gang tackling. Haven’t been doing that all season.</p>— PDS (@PatDStat) <a href="https://twitter.com/PatDStat/status/661014768996642816">November 2, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It was against the Titans............ Mercilus shows up 1 out of 8 games. Grabs a few sacks and pads the numbers.
