HOUSTON -- Today's news that Houston Texans outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney will need another surgery on his knee confirmed what was apparent for weeks. His knee wasn't right -- it wasn't just something he could properly play through.
It's elicited frustration and I can understand that. So much is invested in a first overall pick, even now that the financial stake isn't too high. It costs a franchise to earn that pick. The pick is a reward for suffering through the worst season any team has that year. It's a chance to rebuild with the best player available in that year's draft.
When that player doesn't immediately prove he was worth that investment, frustrations mount and tensions rise. I get that. It's natural. But to call a player a bust for going on injured reserve in his rookie season is unfair and, frankly, inaccurate.
According to Elias Sports Bureau, the last top-10 pick to go on injured reserve was Tampa Bay defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, a 2010 draft pick who suffered a torn biceps injury in December of his rookie season. In October of this year, the Buccaneers gave McCoy the biggest contract ever for a defensive tackle. Matthew Stafford, the first overall pick in 2009, finished his rookie season on injured reserve for a December knee injury. He missed most of the next season with a shoulder injury that required surgery but has since become the fastest quarterback to throw for 20,000 yards. He's even shown he can win without Calvin Johnson.
McCoy's rookie season had an element Clowney's does not. His injury didn't come in the first game of the season, it came late in the year. By that point he'd left an impression of what his defense could look like with him on it.
We don't really know what the Texans defense looks like with Clowney on it. One half of healthy football is hardly a sample size, and neither are the three other games he's played gritting his teeth through a knee that needed another cleanup.
Clowney had arthroscopic knee surgery on Sept. 8 to repair a torn meniscus, a surgery that sometimes takes as little as four weeks of recovery time. Depending on the severity of the injury it can take longer. The swelling and pain he felt nearly three months removed from his surgery indicated another problem. This wasn't a case of a player not wanting to give everything he had -- he just physically couldn't.
Perhaps the narrative would have been different if his injury was one more commonly associated with ending players' seasons. Perhaps it might have favored Clowney more if he didn't come tagged with rumblings of work ethic problems that began swirling in the pre-draft process.
What's important to remember here is that a player's career is more than his rookie season. There's a good example of that on the Texans' own defense where cornerback Kareem Jackson went from loathed to trusted in his third season. A great pass-rusher can have a strong 10-year career. In the scheme of things, one lost season isn't a catastrophe.
Reserve judgement for now. It's much too soon to even consider labeling Clowney's career. This will delay his development, but if all goes according to his plan, a delay is all it will be.