Jadeveon Clowney: Eagles fans to him after hit on Wentz: ‘Go to Hell! Die! Go to prison’
The only way Jadeveon Clowney could be less popular right now in Philadelphia is if he’d stolen the Liberty Bell.
The Seahawks defensive end was already disliked here for his hit that took Nick Foles out of a December 2018 Eagles game, when Clowney was playing for Houston.
Sunday in the NFC wild-card playoff game, Clowney went in on Carson Wentz at the end of a sack Seahawks teammate Bradley McDougald got in the first quarter. Clowney’s helmet and shoulder hit Wentz’s helmet as the quarterback was leaning ahead trying to get back to the line of scrimmage on a scramble.
The Eagles’ $128 million QB left the game with a head injury. Josh McCown, the 40-year-old journeyman back up playing for his ninth team, entered in the first playoff game of his career. The Eagles did not score a touchdown as their season ended in Seattle’s 17-9 win.
After Sunday’s game, Clowney stood at his locker and first addressed a swarm of Philadelphia-area reporters and cameras all around him.
A few minutes later, he described the reaction he’d already gotten from Eagles fans, in person at the stadium and online.
“They are just lighting me up,” Clowney said, “telling me ‘Go to Hell! Die! Go to prison. Go to jail, you and you’re family, all y’all...”
His hit on Foles 13 months ago came after Clowney broke free and drove his face mask and helmet into Foles’ chest.
He got flagged for roughing the passer for that, and then fined by the NFL.
Clowney’s hit on Wentz Sunday is the kind that almost always draws a penalty flag in today’s NFL. Any contact with any part of defender onto the head of a player, particularly a quarterback, typically gets flagged as part of the league’s emphasis on player safety and head-injury awareness.
But Clowney was not penalized for the hit on Wentz. That further incensed Philadelphians.
Wentz stayed in a few more plays. Then he told McCown on the Eagles’ bench to get ready, that he didn’t feel right. Wentz eventually walked into the locker room for evaluation by Eagles’ doctors. He missed the final 3 1/2 quarters of his first career playoff game.
Referee Shawn Smith explained to an NFL pool reporter following the game why he did not penalize Clowney for the play.
“He was a runner and he did not give himself up,” Smith said of Wentz. “We saw incidental helmet contact.”
I asked the three-time Pro Bowl defensive end if he was surprised he did not get penalized on the play.
He said he was not.
“I didn’t think it was that crazy of a hit,” Clowney said. “I thought it was a small, really just tagging-him-down hit. I fell on him, a little bit. I didn’t think it was that big of a hit. I really ain’t even put a lot into it. For him to go out I was like...surprising.”
Monday on his day-after radio show with Seattle’s KIRO AM, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll acknowledged there was helmet-to-helmet contact on Clowney’s hit on Wentz. Carroll said Clowney didn’t have intent of hurting the Eagles’ QB, and added it was “unfortunate” for Wentz and that he knew the game was a big opportunity for him.
Clowney said he was sorry to see Wentz get hurt.
“I didn’t see anything. It was just playing fast and he turned like he was running the ball, so I was trying to get him down,” Clowney said. “It was a bang-bang play.
“I don’t intend to hurt anybody in this league; let me just put that out there. I’ve been down the injury road. It’s not fun. My intention was not to hurt him. I was just playing fast. ...
“I hope he’s OK. Like I said, I didn’t intend to hurt him. I didn’t even know he went out of the game until the next series. I thought it was just a small hit, but everybody was going crazy on the sidelines. I was just trying to finish the play, but it happened.
“I hope he’s OK. I hope he’s good.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 10:57 AM.
