Houston Texans: Team should take a chance on Alabama CB Tony Brown

The Houston Texans are inching closer to the start of the NFL Draft and their teams will be at the ready to make sure they can snag talent that will be able to help make an impact on this team in the future. Tony Brown should be drafted by this team and here’s why.

The Houston Texans are hard at work getting their draft boards ready to face on the task of snatching some considerable collegiate talent to help this team win some games in the future. With the team picking starting in the third round, I wouldn’t expect any of these guys to be Day 1 starters but the potential exists for them to contribute enough to make an immediate impact.

It certainly alludes to general manager Brian Gaine’s assertiveness about his philosophy of bringing in guys that are able to make an impact. That certainly is true. Now’s not the time to focus purely on development but to bring in guys that can help this team win now.

With Deshaun Watson‘s ascendance of respect in a plethora of league circles and just his pure natural talent alone, this team has an important piece of what it will take to go the distance.

As Gaine has previously mentioned, he wants to build as many pieces around Watson as possible. The reasoning is certainly because of his relatively inexpensive rookie contract so it’s important that it’s best to try to win now before the payment comes due on his likely gigantic contract extension within the next few years.

But part of obtaining those said pieces is through the NFL Draft and I think the Houston Texans should take a flyer on talented corner that has experience working in a pro-caliber style defense.

This would be none other than Tony Brown.

The 6’0,” 199-pound versatile grinder — a Beaumont native by the way — with 31.5-inch arms and 9.25-inch hands would be a nice addition to the Houston Texans secondary stable. This guy is definitely characteristic of Gaine’s “stronger, longer, faster” theme of putting this roster together. He ran a 4.35 40-yard dash at the combine, did 14 reps of the bench press and his measurements all make a fit.

Not to mention that he was groomed in a collegiate defense that is designed to prepare players for

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the pro level. He already has those attributes oozing out him, waiting for some team to use his greatest strengths.

So why aren’t teams scrambling to put him on the top of their draft boards if that were the case? That’s a good question and thanks for asking! Brown didn’t necessarily have the utmost of trust with the powers that be — *cough* Nick Saban — and had some off the field concerns, particularly with failed drug tests.

He was suspended indefinitely by the NCAA after the 2015 season but was able to flip that into a four-game suspension in 2016 after appealing the decision. But other than that, he’s been mostly healthy through his tenure down in Tuscaloosa.

In the past, this would be a typical player the Houston Texans would steer away from but with Tyrann Mathieu dropping into the fold, why not take a chance on corner back that could help this team a ton out on the field? He’s expected to be available in the later rounds and I’d snag him in the 5th round.

He’d be a nice add in the draft along with Durham Smythe, to which I’ve written about previously.

According to Pro Football Focus, Brown scored an excellent 92.2 grade in coverage and an extremely solid 84.6 in the slot to which it goes to show that he was making the most of his opportunities out there. He has targeted 29 and 26 times respectively in those positions.

Take a look at what the experts have to say about Brown.

Charlie Campbell of WalterFootball.com:

"“Brown recorded 31 tackles, one interception and two passes broken up in 2017. He has a good physical skill set with instincts, but he can be a gambler, which hurt his playing time because the coaching staff lacked trust in him. Brown has big time skill set to develop in the NFL with excellent size and serious speed. He was excellent at the combine with a fast 40 and a superb showing in the field drills.”"

Lance Zierlein of NFL.com on his weaknesses:

"Hip and ankle tightness creates movement limitations"

"Clunky in early stages of opening hips to run"

"Plays with narrow base and displays balance concerns in coverage"

"Linear mover who is unable to make sudden directional changes"

"Lateral transitions are sluggish"

"Allows excessive separation out of breaks"

"Very low rate of ball production with quarterbacks playing pitch and catch in front of him"

"Doesn’t turn to find the ball downfield"

"Overshoots his target as tackler in space"

It’s interesting that Zierlein compared him to Johnson Bademosi, one of the Texans’ newest additions, who was signed to a two-year, $6.25 million deal last month. This certainly indicates that Brown could be of tremendous help on special teams in coverage as time goes by. He certainly could be a successor-type prospect if things pan out with the full development of his potential.

Next: House of Houston's comprehensive 2018 mock draft

I’m willing to side-step the off-the-field issues he has had to bring him in because just his size, speed and athleticism alone are great reasons to have this guy on the roster in some fashion. Will it happen? We shall see but it’s certainly something to monitor as D-Day, as in Draft Day, approaches.

Brown amassed 86 tackles to which 4.5 of those were ones for loss along with three interceptions, five passes defensed and one forced fumble in his four seasons with the Crimson Tide.

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