Jadeveon Clowney: ‘I’m ready to go’ vs Vikings, held off surgery for Seahawks’ finish
Jadeveon Clowney stood at his locker with a backpack slung over his shoulder and a wide smile across his face.
He didn’t look like a top pass rusher sidelined by a potentially season-altering core-muscle injury.
“I feel pretty good,” the Seahawks’ key defensive end said Saturday after the team listed him as questionable to play Monday night’s home game against Minnesota—but all other signs indicated Clowney is going to play.
“I’m ready to go. ...I’m going to get out there, and I’m looking to play. I won’t be no holding back ...
“I’m looking forward to playing.”
Coach Pete Carroll said Clowney, who manhandled the 49ers in his last game to lead Seattle past previously unbeaten San Francisco, “is fine” to return to playing Monday night after missing last week’s win at Philadelphia.
“He’s ready to go,” Carroll said.
The coach said the same thing about starting defensive tackle Jarran Reed. He walked out of the visting locker room six days ago in Philadelphia in a walking boot with a sprained ankle.
Carroll said fellow tackle Al Woods, an effective run stopper all season, is also ready to play against 1,000-yard rusher Davlin Cook and the Vikings. The team also listed Woods as questionable Saturday.
Carroll said starting linebacker Mychal Kendricks (hamstring) and backup tight end Luke Willson (hamstring) will be game-time decisions on playing.
Special-teams mainstay Neiko Thorpe (groin) and fullback Nick Bellore (quadriceps) are doubtful.
Clowney is so much better off this weekend than last.
This time last week the three-time Pro Bowl defensive end was in pain from treatment for his core muscle he strained in the second quarter of his show-out in the Seahawks’ win at San Francisco Nov. 11 in Philadelphia seeing Dr. Williams Meyers. Doug Baldwin, Marshawn Lynch and other former Seahawks have gone to Meyers. They’ve left after surgeries.
So, I began asking Clowney Saturday, when guys to Meyers...
Clowney chuckled.
“They usually have surgery,” he finished, accurately. “And I told them to hold that off. So now I am holding that off and trying to finish the season.
“If there were a lot of games left, it’d be different. But we ain’t got many. Hopefully, five, six. Just told them, ‘I think I can get through those and help this team.’”
It seems clear this issue is one the Seahawks are going to be maintaining with play-snap limits and practice days off the remainder of this season.
“Maintenance? A little bit, I’m sure,” Clowney said, referring to the possibility of surgery after this season.
“I’ve just got to push through it. In football, I don’t think nobody 100 percent (healthy) after the first game, even that, preseason, training camp. So I don’t think anybody’s looking forward to me being 100. But when you are out there, you play hard. Give everything you got.”
Clowney is in the final weeks of his contract Seattle inherited Sept. 1 in its trade with Houston for the top edge rusher. His play against San Francisco then that of veteran Ziggy Ansah while Clowney was missing the Seahawks’ win at the Eagles has Seattle’s pass rush peaking entering the final month of the regular season.
A day after the regular-season final at home against the 49ers on Dec. 29 the Seahawks can begin negotiating on a new contract for Clowney. Free agency starts in mid-March. The team has promised him it will not put the franchise tag on Clowney to keep him from the free-agent market.
Houston did that to him this year. In protest, Clowney stayed away from the Texans all offseason and preseason, and eventually forced his trade to the Seahawks.
Clowney turned what had been the Seahawks’ potentially fatal flaw—their weak pass rush—into the decisive factor in their overtime win at San Francisco three weeks ago.
Clowney’s latest, greatest performance for Seattle is perhaps the largest reason why the Seahawks (9-2) are in control of their fate for the NFC West division title. Win out, and they will win the division plus have a home playoff game.
“I think it’s a breakout game,” coach Pete Carroll gushed of Clowney at San Francisco.
The Seahawks could begin moving toward keeping Clowney for 2020 and beyond in their window from Dec. 30 to mid-March, when free agency begins. The cost will only rise, perhaps above $20 million, the top market for pass rushers, if Clowney has more games like he did against the 49ers.
Asked two weeks ago about his future beyond this season, Clowney said: “I haven’t thought about it. Like I said, my biggest focus is helping win football games.”
The native of Rock Hill, S.C., who played for the University of South Carolina before being drafted by the Houston Texans, has said since the week he got here three months ago how much he loves the Seahawks’ atmosphere and the Seattle area.
He reiterated this month what a positive experience this Seahawks one has been for him over the first 10 games of the season. It certainly beats the holdout he was in through the spring and summer in Houston. He was mad at the Texans for not re-doing his contract before this season. He got angrier for Houston putting the restrictive franchise tag on him to keep him from free agency, and not at defensive end but at the less lucrative outside-linebacker position.
“It’s been wild. This whole experience, this whole year has just been mind-blowing for me,” he said. “From being traded up here to being with this team, it’s a whole flip. It’s for the good. It was for the good for me. It’s been coming along good.
“I’m loving what the team had to offer, this whole staff’s got to offer. I’m just trying to fit in, to get in where they want me. I’m just trying to help this team win games, whatever I can do.”
He has three sacks in 10 games, off the pace of his career-high 9 1/2 sacks from 2017. But he’s been among the NFL’s most double-teamed defensive linemen all season.
Still, he’s often blown up blockers and plays. He’s already set a career-high with three forced fumbles. He’s recovered two fumbles.
His interception of a Kyler Murray screen pass and his return for a touchdown changed the September game at Arizona into a Seahawks romp.
I asked the 26-year-old defensive end this month if he was concerned or at least curious about what his future will be after 2019.
Clowney leaned his big, 6-foot-5 body in to consider the question and his answer.
“I’m not really worried,” he said.
“I’m really focusing on this season. I don’t care about looking down the road. It’s just one game at a time because we can do something special here.
“I’m not looking past if we get to the Super Bowl or make it to the bowl. It could be something real special. That’s all I’m focusing on. I’m trying to help this team try to find a way to get to the playoffs and get to the Super Bowl.
“That’s what I think everybody’s focusing on right now.”
This story was originally published November 30, 2019 at 2:39 PM.
