Cover 3 is a weekly feature column written by PewterReport.com’s Tampa Bay Bucs beat writer Trevor Sikkema published every Tuesday. The column, as its name suggests, comes in three phases: a statistical observation, an in-depth film breakdown, and a “this or that” segment where the writer asks the reader to chose between two options.
Sikkema’s Stat of the Week
There was a big shake up in the NFL world this week, and it centered around the Houston Texans. The Texans, who have been a playoff-caliber team built through their defense, were in a pickle this offseason, as tensions began to rise between them and their former No. 1 overall pass rusher Jadeveon Clowney.
After failing to reach a long-term contract agreement, the Texans franchise-tagged Clowney back in March. This wasn’t the end of negotiations, however, as they still had time to get a deal done before the season. But that didn’t happen, and as the summer days went by, it appeared the rift between the two grew more and more.
Fast forward to this past week and the Texans moved on from Clowney, trading him to the Seattle Seahawks for nothing more than a late Day 2 draft pick and two fringe linebackers. As a result of the move, they then flipped two of their first-round draft picks and an additional second-round pick for Miami Dolphins offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil, a move that got a lot of conversations going.
The Dolphins choosing to make Ryan Fitzpatrick their starting quarterback and now trading their young, franchise left tackle for a plethora of picks tells me one thing: the Dolphins are tanking hard. After I learned of what the Dolphins got back for Tunsil, I said on Twitter that this was clearly a hard rebuild in order to make sure Miami has the chance to select one of Tua Tagovailoa or Trevor Lawrence over the next two years, hopefully setting up a potential dynasty with either quarterback as their centerpiece. I also mentioned that I respect this level of tanking – or, in less harsh terms – a head-first, no-looking-back commitment to a full rebuild.
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