Today the NFL announced the players who would be at the NFL Pro Bowl to represent their teams, and the two players everyone expected to go after their amazing seasons this year are Jadeveon Clowney and DeAndre Hopkins. Both have had tremendous seasons together this year and have been the highlight of such a horrible year for the Texans in general after the injuries that have plagued this team all season long. The surprising thing is we expected Clowney to do better with the team on his back and being the lone man on defense, but with Hopkins, we expected production to drop with Watson being injured for the rest of the year. Hopkins is a different monster as his production has actually kept a nice balance since Watson left mid-season with an ACL tear.
The Texans have had one player elected to the Pro Bowl for 14 consecutive years as they Texans will travel to Florida instead of the normal Hawaii hotspot that has been done previously. Clowney is currently in his 4th season, and has been to the Pro Bowl the past two years after his injury riddled start to his career with the first two seasons needing huge surgeries. Clowney has bounced back and silenced all the doubters every Sunday, and he has the explosiveness and potential that everyone once saw on draft evaluations. The respect is finally coming in again as Clowney is back in the Pro Bowl again, and many are eating their words for the early career evaluations they had. Clowney currently has 9 sacks (career high) and 2 forced fumbles with 2 fumble recoveries.
Hopkins is only making it to the Pro Bowl for the second time in his career since his first one in 2015. Sadly, the AFC competition for the Pro Bowl is much tougher as there are some top receivers in this side, but Hopkins has surely silenced all the doubters this year as he has gone through his career. He might have even solidified himself as a top 3 WR this year with what he’s doing with no QB. Hopkins currently has 92 receptions for 1,313 yards with 12 touchdowns. This is a career high for Hopkins and even a franchise receiving record. Call me crazy, but Hopkins has the potential to retire a better player than Johnson, and I loved Johnson. Hopkins is special, and he has proven it with every QB who has ever thrown it to him, almost Andre-esq.
