Keep Jadeveon Clowney? In some ways, Seahawks better situated than with Frank Clark
Here they are again, at an offseason crossroads with their top pass rusher.
They have the same two, clear paths: Pay him. Or not.
The Seahawks have 19 players who can become free agents in March. None are as important as Jadeveon Clowney.
He was Seattle’s most disruptive defensive lineman this past season, on a unit that did not disrupt consistently enough to get the team back to the Super Bowl. He can become an unrestricted free agent for the first time. That could happen March 18, when the league year for 2020 begins and the free-agent market opens.
Clowney’s contract ended with the Seahawks’ loss at Green Bay in the NFC divisional playoffs Jan. 12. On Jan. 13, Clowney cleaned out his locker at team headquarters then walked upstairs. On his way into the offseason he went into the office of John Schneider. The three-time Pro Bowl defensive end told the Seahawks’ general manager he loves Seattle, that he would love to find a way to stay.
Will that happen?
“Who knows?” Clowney, who turns 27 next month, said in the visiting locker room at Lambeau Field after his and Seattle’s season ended two games short of the Super Bowl.
“We’ll see how it goes.”
He shrugged.
“This is a great team, a great organization, a great quarterback in Russ,” he said.
Clowney also said that night in Green Bay: “I want to get that Super Bowl by any means.
“Who’s going to get me there? I’m not looking to get on no sorry team for no money.”
A ha. Money.
That will decide if the Seahawks’ most important potential free agent stays or goes. Of course it will.
It always does.
Last offseason Clowney refused to sign the tender offer for the franchise tag his Houston Texans placed on him for 2019. That restriction kept him from free agency’s riches and assigned him an $8 million salary last season. Clowney’s holdout stretched through the preseason. Schneider then took advantage of the Texans by trading two players who may not have made the 2019 Seahawks, Barkevious Mingo and Jacob Martin, to acquire Clowney Sept. 1.
Market for pass rushers
The market for edge pass rushers in the NFL reset last offseason to above $20 million per year. That’s what Demarcus Lawrence got from Dallas in the spring of 2019.
That’s what Frank Clark wanted, too.
The Seahawks’ top pass rusher this time last year was scheduled to play for them in 2019 under their franchise tag. Clark saw Lawrence’s deal, justifiably saw himself as a healthier, more productive player in their comparable careers and wanted $20 million-plus per season, too.
Schneider and Carroll decided they weren’t going to pay Clark that, not with top-of-the-NFL deals for franchise cornerstones Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner imminent. Kansas City said it would pay Clark what he wanted. So the Seahawks traded Clark to the Chiefs for a first-round draft choice last year and a second-round pick this spring. Kansas City then signed Clark to a five-year contract worth $105.5 million with $65.5 million guaranteed.
Clark and the Chiefs are playing in Super Bowl 54 this weekend against San Francisco.
And the Seahawks are in the same situation deciding on Clowney that they were in this time last year.
Thing is, they are more able—and perhaps more willing—to pay Clowney now than Clark then.
Clowney, Clark situations similar but different
It’s true the Seahawks have less leverage with Clowney than they did with Clark. Carroll and Schneider promised Clowney when they traded for him they would not use Seattle’s 2020 franchise tag on Clowney to keep him from free agency. So the Seahawks can’t keep Clowney tethered with the option of trading him like they did Clark after they tagged him.
But, significantly, Seattle has nearly double the space under its 2020 salary cap right now than it had entering free agency last March.
The Seahawks have roughly $59.4 million in space, according to overthecap.com, assuming a $200 million cap for this year; the NFL will set the exact limit in March. That’s the eighth-best cap situation in the league.
Last March at the start of free agency they were $33 million under the cap. They were about to commit to Wilson and Wagner the richest contracts at their positions in the league.
They’ve since done that, into the 2020s.
Clowney proved to be a transformative player for Seattle’s defense in his four-plus months with the team.
The Seahawks’ pass rush was 25th in the NFL entering its game at San Francisco on Nov. 11. Clowney then had the most dominant game by a Seattle defensive lineman in years that night in Santa Clara. He dominated the 49ers’ offensive line and terrorized quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. He had a sack. He had five of Seattle’s season-high 10 quarterback hits. He forced a fumble. He recovered a fumble.
The Seahawks sacked Garoppolo five times, forced three turnovers and beat San Francisco to get back in the NFC West race. The following game the pass rush ruined Carson Wentz into four of Philadelphia’s five turnovers and Seattle won on the road again, over the Eagles. That uprising Clowney sparked catapulted the Seahawks to the top of the division and the first playoff seeding in the NFC.
But Clowney felt pain in his abdomen in the first half of that win over the 49ers. He played on, splendidly, then saw a specialist in Philadelphia. Clowney talked the doctor into holding off on core-muscle surgery that the defensive end is having this month instead, so he could finish his contract and start the Seahawks’ playoff games.
But in saving himself for those Clowney missed three of the final five games of the regular season. Seattle, once 10-2, did not pressure Jared Goff at all in a 28-12 loss at the Los Angeles Rams that knocked the Seahawks out of top playoff positioning in the NFC. The Seahawks barely pressured rookie Kyler Murray, who had been the league’s most sacked QB, in a home loss to Arizona.
The holes in Seattle’s secondary became gaping when the defense allowed quarterbacks time to find them again.
The team lost three of its final four games. Miami was the only NFL team that finished the season with fewer sacks than the Seahawks’ 28. Seattle fell from a prime chance at home-field advantage throughout the playoffs to the fifth seed. As a wild card the Seahawks (11-5) were on the road for the postseason. They ultimately lost on the road in the divisional round for the fifth time in five tries.
This remains true: the only three times the Seahawks have made the Super Bowl have come when they had home field throughout the conference playoffs. That was at the end of the 2005, ‘13 and ‘14 seasons.
That’s how important Clowney is to Seattle’s defense and team.
Look beyond the statistics—three sacks in 13 games. Clowney was the most double-teamed edge rusher in the league this past season. He disrupted multiple running plays per game playing every down. He made Quinton Jefferson a more consistent pass rusher inside of him, and made Rasheem Green the Seahawks’ surprise sack leader next to him. That was after Green did next to nothing as a rookie third-round pick in 2018.
Popular with team, coaches
And he was an instant hit inside the Seahawks’ locker room. He was a chill dude who dispensed knowledge to the team’s many younger players in an understated way. He blended easily with veteran leaders Wagner, K.J. Wright and Wilson, and his new city, which he’s repeatedly said he loves.
“He’s a terrific football player and he had a big impact on us,” Carroll said. “We would love to have him back.”
The coach said the Seahawks have no concern about Clowney’s recovery from core surgery. That means the rest of the league won’t, either, should Seattle not make an offer attractive enough to Clowney to keep him from shopping in free agency.
If Clowney shops he’ll almost certainly find an offer that leads him to leave. Even after core surgery. That’s how richly edge rushers are in demand in the pass-and-sack-the-passer NFL.
On March 16, other teams can begin talking to players who will become unrestricted free agents when the market opens two days later.
That’s how much time the Seahawks have to make Clowney an offer that convinces him to stay. If he stays, that expenditure would presumably put Seattle back in its familiar spot of conservative spending for free agency, targeting more mid- and lower-tier options on one-year deals.
If Clowney doesn’t get what he’s seeking from the Seahawks, the team may be shopping in the expensive, top tier of end rushers in free agency.
That’s how important pressuring quarterbacks is to Seattle’s defense, and 2020 season.
Seahawks pending unrestricted free agents with expiring contracts, listed in order of likelihood to re-sign:
Al Woods
Marshawn Lynch (with perhaps a special deal)
Josh Gordon
Pending restricted free agents (other teams can match if Seattle chooses to tender them contracts by March 18):
Exclusive right free agents (if Seattle tenders these players qualifying offers by March 18 they will return):
This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 7:35 AM.
