The deadline for teams to exercise their options for a fifth-year on the contracts of 2014 first-round picks falls on May 3 and teams have started to make those decisions.
The Texans had one of the easier ones to make and they made it on Friday. According to multiple reports, the Texans will exercise their option on defensive end Jadeveon Clowney’s contract.
Clowney was the first overall pick of the 2014 draft and was limited to 17 games by injuries in his first two seasons before showing why he was so highly regarded coming out of South Carolina. With J.J. Watt out for most of the season, Clowney took over as a disruptive force up front for a Texans defense that carried the team to a division title. Clowney was named a second-team All-Pro and selected for his first Pro Bowl when the year was over.
Teaming Clowney with a healthy Watt and Whitney Mercilus in 2017 would be reason to think the Texans can do the same, although they’d surely like to see their offense play more of a positive role the next time around.
