The Houston Texans will be without 2013 first overall pick Jadeveon Clowney for nine months after he underwent microfracture surgery, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter.
The explosive linebacker out of South Carolina had surgery Monday after a disappointing rookie season in which he tallied just seven tackles and no sacks in four games.
When Clowney tore his meniscus, was also cartilage damage. #Texans knew microfracture was possible. Knee wouldn’t tolerate a mere cleanup
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 10, 2014
The rehabilitation time frame means Clowney is in jeopardy of missing the beginning of the 2015 season.
Texans general manager Rick Smith told FOX26 Sports that Clowney's initial injury suffered in Week 1 was also more severe than originally thought:
The original injury that he suffered back in September on opening day was not limited to his lateral meniscus. He also had some articular cartilage damage as well. What we did was we went in and cleaned both of those up. We wanted to see if his knee would tolerate that. He worked hard in the rehab setting. He was diligent in that. It's just that his knee wouldn't tolerate the injury. This was always an eventual thing that we knew was a possibility.