The Seahawks’ Jadeveon Clowney, Ziggy Ansah Effect: ‘It just got real for other offenses’
Duane Brown has an advisory for Cincinnati and all others playing the Seattle Seahawks’ upgraded defensive front this season.
“It just got real,” the veteran left tackle said. “It just got real for other offenses. ...
“It’s scary, man. It’s scary.”
K.J. Wright used the same, single word Wednesday when asked to describe Seattle’s front seven after the team traded for Houston’s Jadeveon Clowney last weekend to pair with ex-Detroit Lions Pro Bowl defensive end Ziggy Ansah, signed in May, plus a Super Bowl-veteran linebacking crew of All-Pro Bobby Wagner flanked by Wright and Mychal Kendricks.
“Scary.”
We’ll see once the games begin Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals at CenturyLink Field.
At least in theory, planning and expectation, the Seahawks’ defense has transformed in the last week. The instant upgrade remains the talk of the team, inside and outside the locker room.
Ansah has practiced for the first time with Seattle after shoulder surgery in 2018 with Detroit, then a groin injury. On Saturday, Clowney arrived from Houston in a heist of a trade for two back-end players — Jacob Martin and Barkevious Mingo — plus a third-round draft choice.
In five days, two Pro Bowl difference makers off the edge essentially fell out of the sky into defensive line coach Clint Hurtt’s meeting room, just in time for the opener. This, after months of angst over what had been the team’s potentially fatal flaw: a lack of proven pass rushers in the wake of trading top sack man Frank Clark in the spring.
Hurtt’s reaction?
“Thank you, Pete. Thank you, John,” the D-line coach said, laughing after Wednesday’s practice.
Hurtt said Clowney ran “like a gazelle” in the practice and that Ansah is also in close to full condition. Both will play Sunday’s season opener against Cincinnati and likely at the same time.
“It’s unique,” coach Pete Carroll said of the challenge Seattle suddenly can now present to offenses.
“Any coach in the history of football is looking for a pass rusher going into Week 1,” Carroll said. “Since UoP I’ve been thinking about that.”
That’s University of Pacific in Stockton, Calif., where Carroll played defensive back and then began his coaching career as a graduate assistant. That was in 1974.
Seattle has added two top ones in the span of a week.
Brown and Wright would know the value of edge rushers, what they can do for a defense and to an offense.
They have 21 combined years of NFL experience, Wright in a defensive front for nine years and Brown with 12 years blocking one.
Brown, in particular, knows Clowney better than just about anyone west of Houston. They were teammates on the Texans. Brown went against Clowney every day in practice for the first 3 1/2 seasons of the defensive end’s five seasons playing for Houston.
Brown also knows how to handle an opposing, elite pass rusher. Now the Seahawks have two: Clowney and Ansah have combined for 77 sacks and four Pro Bowl selections in their careers. The are both 6-feet-5, with arms seemingly as long as the Narrows Bridge.
When game-planning against a team with Ansah or Clowney, an offense’s protection plan for its quarterback begins with addressing each dangerous end.
Now Seattle intends to employ them together much of this season, too.
How exactly is having Clowney and Ansah going to effect the Bengals and their new offense and coaching staff Sunday and for the Seahawks’ other opponents this season?
“You can’t really slide to one,” Brown said. “If you have one that is dominant and one that is kind of mediocre, you bring your attention to the more dominant force. You slide your protection there, bring guard help. You want to chip with a back, or something.
“When you have two guys on the edge like we do, the tackles are going to be on an island, for the most part. And that’s how they (Clowney and Ansah) like to work, one on one.
“It’s going to be exciting to see. I’ve played against Ziggy. I know what he’s capable of. I practiced against Clowney, a lot. You watch both of those guys on film, they stick out.”
Brown said what makes Clowney so dangerous is he can play inside as a tackle in pass-rush situations. In Houston’s 3-4 defense, Clowney often was a stand-up rusher who roamed the line before the snap. At times, Clowney dropped into coverage as a linebacker.
Clowney said one of the most attractive aspects of wanting to get traded to Seattle —besides the weather not being 95 degrees with 90-percent humidity much of the year — is the Seahawks run a 4-3 as their base defense. Their ends get up field after quarterbacks and ball carriers. In Seattle, the linebackers and defensive backs worry about what Clowney at times had to cover in Houston.
The last time Clowney played in a 4-3 was in college, for South Carolina. He grew into the NFL’s first-overall draft choice when he left the Gamecocks in 2014.
“I get to get back in there going vertical, not dropping,” he said. “Just really putting my head down and grinding. When you’re going forward, you don’t think about it a lot.
“That’s the best thing about this defense, is you’ve got guys behind you that can make all plays and guys up front just getting moving and get going and cause havoc. That’s what I like about this.”
Brown said having two havoc-causers on each end is an offensive coordinator’s nightmare.
“It’s just, the combinations are endless,” Brown said. “I’m excited to see what they can do.”
How much can they do Sunday?
Clowney practiced Wednesday for the second time this week and second time in 8 1/2 months. He was holding out in Houston, ticked at the Texans for placing a franchise tag on him for this year restricting him from a richer, multiyear deal. He said he’s been working out for months in Houston and in Miami.
“I’m pleasantly surprised. He is good condition,” Hurtt said. “There is a difference between working-out condition and football shape, especially when the tempo starts picking up.”
As for the Seahawks’ system?
“He’s spending extra time with me, really, since Sunday, trying to get everything down and get the system under his wings and be ready to go,” Hurtt said.
The D-line coach said Ansah looks similarly in shape, like Clowney not yet 100 percent in condition for full reps in games “but pretty doggone close.”
“The biggest thing is knocking off the rust,” Hurtt said of Ansah, referring to him getting his timing and pass-rush angles down better.
He said Ansah is “outstanding” in knowing Seattle’s schemes.
When asked what is a realistic expectation for how much Clowney and Ansah will be able to play Sunday in their first game for the Seahawks, Carroll didn’t take the bait. He never does.
“You know I’m not going to answer that,” Carroll said. “Nice try.”
Both will play Sunday against Cincinnati. Hurtt said coaches will monitor and check-in with each returning sack man during game, and basically play it by ear as the game goes on to determine how much they play.
Carroll did say this about their playing time: “I don’t think we’re anywhere near where we will be with those guys.”
Ansah has averaged fewer than 31 snaps, about half an average game for a defender, in each of the last three season. The last season the 30-year-old end has played as many as 500 snaps was 2015, his Pro Bowl season with the Lions. So 20 snaps Sunday may be a reasonable ceiling for him.
Asked after they both practiced on a limited basis Wednesday what a realistic expectation is for when Clowney and Ansah will be full go and in full games reps, Hurtt said: “I don’t know if I could put necessarily a time on that. But their attention to detail and the way they are working in practice, it won’t take long.
“It won’t take long, at all.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2019 at 4:40 PM with the headline "The Seahawks’ Jadeveon Clowney, Ziggy Ansah Effect: ‘It just got real for other offenses’."
