Bill O’Brien on Jadeveon Clowney: We want him here, the sooner the better

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Texans head coach Bill O’Brien oversaw the first practice of training camp on Thursday and the session unfolded without Jadeveon Clowney on the field.

Clowney didn’t sign a long-term deal with the club this offseason and has not signed his franchise tag, so the expectation is that he won’t be reporting to camp anytime soon. O’Brien said on Thursday that he hopes that expectation does not turn out to be reality.

“I can tell you unequivocally that we want Jadeveon Clowney here,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said, via Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle. “He’s part of this team. We want him here. There’s always a difference when we talk about money and relative to and wanting him on the team. That’s something that the agent and our team are working on. Relative to the player and the history that him and I have together, we would love to have him here. He’s a really talented football player that has made a lot of good plays for us in the past. The sooner the better. We would love to have him.”

Clowney’s agent and the team can’t work out a multi-year deal after the July 15 deadine to get one done, but they could work out a one-year deal that pays him more than the value of the tag. There’s a dispute about the value of that tag right now and the lack of a General Manager in Houston could be an impediment to any such talks.

O’Brien downplayed that on Thursday by saying they have a “really strong structure in place” to handle what had been on Brian Gaine’s plate before his firing, but none of that may be enough for them to get Clowney back in the locker room this summer.