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Texans trade for CB Gaeron Conley


ET80

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1 minute ago, SimonGruber said:

He played much better last year which is why Gruden didn’t trade him but it seems he’s regressed or checked out it’s still a good gamble 

I’ll give him a chance but anytime you trade a 1st rounder for a 3rd in year 3 it’s a bust. 
 

we need a starting CB, so maybe we get lucky. We have a starter right now with a 35 pff rating. 

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52 minutes ago, RaidersAreOne said:

 

I know I heard Conley's name last season when Kevin Johnson went down...

EJ Gaines is now in Houston for a workout - he was a point of discussion when Brian Gaine first got to Houston, so I'm sure he'll be signed as well.

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I hated the Clowney trade as much as anyone, but I'm kind of sick of the apples/oranges comparisons people are making.   The trade is not just players/draft picks, it's players/picks and SALARY/YEARS.  Right or wrong, we decided that Clowney would not be resigned at the Von Miller money he was looking for 6 years / $114m / $70+ million guaranteed.  Yes, they (either Gaine or BOb) absolutely botched matters with him especially missing the window where teams could trade for him and work out a long-term deal, but the comparisons still need to be 1 year of Clowney vs. the return.  I'm not saying it will come close to adding up especially with the $7 million we paid on his way out the door, but he was a distressed veteran asset and those are regularly dumped for middle/late round comp. So let's properly line up the trade.

  • J. Clowney - OLB/DE - 1st Round, #1 overall, 2014
    • 2019 - $15 million  ($7 million dead hit to Texans)
    • 2020-2026 - $20-$25 million cap hit annually + $70m guaranteed (aka dead hit if he gets hurt or underperforms)

vs.

  • J. Martin - OLB - 6th Round, #186 overall, 2018
    • 2019 - $570,000
    • 2020 - $660,000
    • 2021 - $750,000
  • B. Mingo - OLB - 1st round, #6 overall, 2013
    • 2019 - $4,100,000
  • G. Conley - CB - 1st round, #24 overall, 2017
    • 2019 - $833,000
    • 2020 - $1,892,409
    • 2021 - 5th year option

And no, the Tunsil/Stills trade should not be lumped in here either as we could have simply let Clowney walk after playing out franchise tag and resign Tunsil long-term. However, Mercilus seems to have been providing MORE production than Clowney from his spot and should be resigned, but at less than half what Clowney is asking and we have $86 million in cap space heading into 2020 with Mercilus, Reader, Roby, Joseph as our only significant resignings.  We have a fortune to both lock up Watson long-term which will be Caserio's first responsibility and rebuild a secondary which IMO is better done with veterans than draft picks as they are notoriously difficult to draft both for us and others.  It's an unconventional approach, but as the season progresses, it's clear the window is going to be wide-open for us to seize the AFC, especially after Brady retires this offseason as I believe has been the plan all along.   

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3 hours ago, Apollo Stallion said:

I hated the Clowney trade as much as anyone, but I'm kind of sick of the apples/oranges comparisons people are making.   The trade is not just players/draft picks, it's players/picks and SALARY/YEARS.  Right or wrong, we decided that Clowney would not be resigned at the Von Miller money he was looking for 6 years / $114m / $70+ million guaranteed.  Yes, they (either Gaine or BOb) absolutely botched matters with him especially missing the window where teams could trade for him and work out a long-term deal, but the comparisons still need to be 1 year of Clowney vs. the return.  I'm not saying it will come close to adding up especially with the $7 million we paid on his way out the door, but he was a distressed veteran asset and those are regularly dumped for middle/late round comp. So let's properly line up the trade.

  • J. Clowney - OLB/DE - 1st Round, #1 overall, 2014
    • 2019 - $15 million  ($7 million dead hit to Texans)
    • 2020-2026 - $20-$25 million cap hit annually + $70m guaranteed (aka dead hit if he gets hurt or underperforms)

vs.

  • J. Martin - OLB - 6th Round, #186 overall, 2018
    • 2019 - $570,000
    • 2020 - $660,000
    • 2021 - $750,000
  • B. Mingo - OLB - 1st round, #6 overall, 2013
    • 2019 - $4,100,000
  • G. Conley - CB - 1st round, #24 overall, 2017
    • 2019 - $833,000
    • 2020 - $1,892,409
    • 2021 - 5th year option

And no, the Tunsil/Stills trade should not be lumped in here either as we could have simply let Clowney walk after playing out franchise tag and resign Tunsil long-term. However, Mercilus seems to have been providing MORE production than Clowney from his spot and should be resigned, but at less than half what Clowney is asking and we have $86 million in cap space heading into 2020 with Mercilus, Reader, Roby, Joseph as our only significant resignings.  We have a fortune to both lock up Watson long-term which will be Caserio's first responsibility and rebuild a secondary which IMO is better done with veterans than draft picks as they are notoriously difficult to draft both for us and others.  It's an unconventional approach, but as the season progresses, it's clear the window is going to be wide-open for us to seize the AFC, especially after Brady retires this offseason as I believe has been the plan all along.   

Martin and Mingo have basicAlly been nothing this year. 

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Looking at the Texans' secondary, it looks like we're transitioning to play a lot more press man.

If you look at Gareon Conley over the course of his career, he's excelled in press coverage, specifically, but he's not a good tackler and struggles in zone. If you look at the film, the Raiders have been switching to a LOT more zone, which the majority of their DBs are more suited to. And if you look at it, it's more or less worked, but Conley can't play zone very well. He was a square peg in a round hole. There's no denying that he's talented, but he was no longer a fit for what the team wanted to do, and it's not like they'd change the scheme to suit his needs, specifically, and have the rest of their DBs struggle. He just has a different skillset, so it makes a lot of sense to move on from him. Good for the Raiders for trading him, rather than benching him and letting his value drop, or playing him and letting the value drop even more.

Conley was good in his rookie season, but had a rocky start to 2018, allowing a QB rating of 92+ and a catch allowed percentage of 73% through the first four weeks. However, he caught fire afterwards, and by the end of the season, he had changed his season-total QB rating to the 70s and allowed only 54% of passes to be completed on the year, per PFF. Those are good marks.

When you look at Lonnie Johnson, I expected him to get torched as long as Jonathan Joseph was on the field, because they have two extremely different skillsets. Lonnie was the second-best press corner in this draft class, rated ahead of DeAndre Baker and Joejuan Williams, and only just behind David Long. Of the two, Lonnie was seen as having the higher ceiling than long due to his prototypical physical skillset. JJo, at this point of his career, just doesn't have it in him to play much man coverage anymore. Bradley Roby, as well, isn't really much of a zone corner, and is ideally suited to play a lot of man coverage from the nickel position, based off of his production through his career. The Texans have employed a good mix of man and zone coverages this season, possibly to keep any one corner from being a huge liability all of the time. For what it's worth, it's a solid plan, because you can disguise coverage pre-snap, and your personnel won't give it away when you have zone and man corners on the field at the same time. However, once a team diagnoses the coverage after the snap, you have a weak link either way that the opposing team, more times than not, will be successful picking on.

I think with a trio of Lonnie Johnson, Gareon Conley, and Bradley Roby, the Texans are going to try to bully receivers at the line. They'll try to throw them off their routes and mirror them step-for-step. It should feed off of a Watt/Mercilus pass rush and feed into it, as well. Both phases will benefit from each other, and we could see this unit take a big jump. However, there are still ways to beat press coverage. If you have a receiver like Nuk on the other team, who can both make clean cuts and breaks and out-physical you for the football, you'll get beaten when you're in press. Of course, Nuk will beat any coverage. But big, red-zone targets could potentially defeat press coverage. Receivers with a really clean release are more likely to avoid getting jammed at the line. And, of course, if a team puts a receiver in motion, like, say, the LA Rams love to do, that can manufacture a clean release to beat press coverage. Press is also worse against the run, as your corners are pretty much putting themselves into blocks every play of they try to stop the run, and you don't have as much freedom as, say, off-man coverage, where you can flip your hips and go after a back, or zone, where you can peek into the backfield if you're quick enough. However, a decrease in run-game contributions be from the cornerbacks is not much of a sacrifice considering the Texans' personnel. 

Overall, I like the move, and I think it will help the Texans to be better. 

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Good stuff Hobo.  Love me a fellow deep diver.

Look guys, I really don't know a damn thing about Conley aside from what I've read in the past few days, but I totally approve of the move in concept.  Of course, I also agreed in concept with the Kayvon Webster signing last year who struck me as a similar player, but that lasted 1 snap.   Seems like the primary complaint is poor tackling and zone coverage neither of which I give a rat's *** about as if you actually cover them, you don't have to tackle them and our run defense is always stout.  Glover Quin was a nice tackler, but he and Kareem as outside CBs led to one of the 3 worst passing defenses in NFL history (maybe 5 by now) as stopping them on 1st and 2nd doesn't matter when they go over the top on 3rd with ease.

Short-term, we needed a warm body but longer-term we need speed and man to man cover skills and press is an added bonus.   Neither Gaine or Smith ever understood the difference between an outside man to man CB, slot CB, and a zone CB.  The Colvin signing is exhibit 1 as it made no sense especially with Kareem and Honey Badger around.  Dude reminded me of Brice McCain who looked good exactly one season with Manning/Quin behind him Joseph as a Pro Bowler shutting down #1's and Jackson cleaning up the garbage.  Exhibit 2 was Kevin Johnson who had no man coverage skills to speak of which was a stupid pairing with Kareem who has always been a liability sticking with a receiver for more than 10 yards.   I know things didn't end well with Shareece Wright who tailed off badly towards the end of last season, but when he wasn't getting beaten by double moves, he was rarely an arms length away from receivers and actually broke up passes instead of this "bend don't break" stuff which is code for "cushion and tackle" which beats mediocre teams, not good ones.

I'm fine with the occasional late round slow zone corner / special teamer as a #5 CB, but aside from one magical year where Bouye happened, we've had those slow tacklers masquerading as #2's and that's if Joseph was healthy which usually is only 75% of the time.    Hell, it's been Joseph and a bunch of slot guys for years which is great if you just want to give up 8 yards every pass outside because of an absurd cushion, but that's going to bite you in close games late and you will never win against quality QBs and #1WRs who will exploit that all day and 10 times on Sundays. 

From a GM perspective, it is maddening that we have been trying to fix this secondary on the fly since letting Bouye walk after 2016. 2017 was one of the most ridiculous exercises in spaghetti management (throw it against the wall and see what sticks) I've ever seen with something like 20 DBs cycling thru the roster.  2018 was refreshing with the Reid pick and Badger signing, but instead of finally building on it being flush with cap space we went cheap and used spare parts again (I actually liked and still like the Gipson signing, but we lost 3 safeties in HB, KJ, and Hal and Addae/Moore are not coverage assets).  What is more ridiculous is that Joseph should have been transitioning into a Terrence Newman type role since 2016 and letting his play recognition and fundamentals make up for some lost steps, but he's still out there covering 4.3 burners as a #1.  

So, I don't know if Conley is the answer or not, but I'd rather see us actually try to execute this scheme the way it was intended as a man coverage heavy scheme instead of the glorified prevent we played in 2017 which is where this thing was trending again.  Conley has the athletic tools to execute it which is something late round draft picks like Crawford, Kelly, DeCoud, will never offer and at least it's not repeating the same zone/slot mistakes like the Johnson, Harris, Carmichael picks or Colvin, Boddy-Calhoun, or 2017 #2CB of the week signings.

Finally, I have no use for the "he wasn't playing well for us anymore" critiques from bad teams.  The friggin Browns straight up cut Joe Haden for a Jamar Taylor, Jason McCourty, BBC unit because Haden wasn't any good anymore.  It remains "the one that got away" for me as 3 years / $27 million from the Steelers is straight up robbery when you consider we paid Colvin $34 million/4 including more guaranteed for one game this season than Haden got for his 3 years.  

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2 hours ago, Pastor Dillon said:

So if the plan is for Conley and Johnson to be our long term starting CBs, I’m skeptical but it could pay off big time and allow us to resign Roby this off season who has played well. 

I'm all for bringing Roby back, but my primary target would be Ronald Darby who is 26, runs a 4.3 and has been a #1CB for a Super Bowl Champion any frankly I was shocked he came back on a 1 year deal. 

Trae Waynes is a bit like Joseph was in Cincy where Leon Hall got all the publicity, but it's Waynes who provides the wheels and frankly has outplayed Xavier Rhodes the past few seasons.  Heck, Mackenzie Alexander is a rock solid slot corner in Minn and also a FA, so how about bringing in two guys who already communicate well and letting Conley and LJ fight it out for the #2 gig since they're both cheap for the next 3 years.  One thing, I wish the Texans would incorporate is the occasional nickel blitz istead of being so passive on 3rd downs and Alexander is one of the best at it and having guys capable of hanging on an island is essential for it.  Again, $89 million in cap next year guys - screw going thru the first few years of guys like Waynes being developed (not that we've developed anyone but Bouye), let good secondary coaches like Zimmer develop em, then steal em when they are stuck paying Rhodes and Cousins. 

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On 10/22/2019 at 11:04 AM, ET80 said:

EJ Gaines is now in Houston for a workout - he was a point of discussion when Brian Gaine first got to Houston, so I'm sure he'll be signed as well.

Have never, ever understood why NFL teams haven't liked Gaines. I loved him as a prospect, and largely, he's played very well at the NFL level, first for the Rams and then the Bills (browns was basically a lost year). He's zone reliant, and sure he gets hurt, but the talent and play have mostly been there. 

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