Houston Texans

Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney needed knee surgery after season

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 1:22 p.m. ET

Fansided, Brad Berreman/Fansided

Jadeveon Clowney has been hampered by injury during is NFL career, and he’s added another to the list now.

After registering just 4.5 sacks over 17 games during his first two NFL seasons, Houston Texans defensive end Jadeveon Clowney stayed relatively healthy this season. Over 14 regular season games, he had six sacks and 52 total tackles while flashing the form that made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 draft. All in all, Clowney made a very successful transition to defensive end after primarily playing outside linebacker over his first two seasons.

Elbow and wrist issues kept Clowney out of a meaningless regular season finale for the Texans. He then played in both playoff games for the Texans, with three combined tackles and an interception in a Wild Card Round win over the Oakland Raiders.

Clowney earned his first career Pro Bowl selection for his efforts this season. But he’ll be skipping the event his weekend after undergoing knee surgery recently.

As John McClain of the Houston Chronicle cited, Clowney had microfracture surgery on his right knee as a rookie. So this new injury is not to the same knee, or as severe of a surgery, and Clowney is expected to be ready in plenty of time for offseason work.

Clowney may have just been looking for any excuse to skip a meaningless game like the Pro Bowl, with no novelty of a trip to Hawaii attached to it, and having knee surgery as soon as possible is a good idea under any circumstance. But his injury history invites a healthy amount of skepticism, so until Clowney is back on a practice field in some capacity Texans’ fans will have their fingers crossed.