As they continue to wait are Seahawks in better spot with Jadeveon Clowney than last week?
As every weekday morning, even in an pandemic, I was on Seattle radio again in another toy-department diversion from our real life of COVID-19.
KJR-AM co-host Chuck Powell asked me an interesting question: Are the Seahawks better off this week than last with Jadeveon Clowney still unsigned?
Is Seattle better positioned if it (eventually, someday) re-signs the three-time Pro Bowl pass rusher to a one-year contract, now that he’s rejected its and every other NFL team’s multi-year offer in the first nine days of free agency?
Powell’s point is a good one: The 27-year-old Clowney is healthy again after surgery in January to fix a sports hernia that kept him out of three of the Seahawks’ final five games last regular season. Playing on another one-year deal he reportedly is considering, Clowney would be motivated to ball out in the 2020 season, to set up another go-round on the free-agent market next year. A talented player motivated by riches on the horizon often becomes a fantastic performer in that contract year.
Clowney looked motivated as any defensive linemen in recent Seahawks history that November Monday night in Santa Clara when he destroyed the 49ers’ offensive line. He constantly battered Jimmy Garoppolo. Clowney was why the Seahawks beat previously undefeated and Super Bowl-bound San Francisco on its home field.
It looked that night like Clowney was earning his $20 million per year in one, memorable game, with the rest of the league and potential suitors watching.
It also was the night he first felt pain in his core, during the second quarter.
His history of injuries—only one season playing all 16 games in his six-year career, with knee microfracture and now core-muscle surgeries—has scared teams off from giving him that much money. The Seahawks have offered $18.5 million per year, according to Sports Illustrated’s Corbin Smith. Clowney has yet to sign that deal, thinking he’s a $20-million-a-year talent.
And now he may be of a one-year mind. Get back to the market when the coronavirus crisis presumably won’t shut down travel to team facilities for physical exams. Get that megabucks deal when he is 28, instead of 27.
That scenario indeed could be a potential win for the Seahawks to retain him. But they would not be better off.
The obvious reason: any team would want a still relatively young athletic freak at a position so coveted in this passer-and-sack-the-passer league for as many years of his prime as possible. Clowney signed through 2023—Seattle prefers four-year contracts for big veterans—would have him anchoring Seattle’s needy pass rush through his 30th birthday. That is for as long as Russell Wilson is under contract to be the franchise quarterback.
Plus, general manager John Schneider and Matt Thomas, his top salary cap man and negotiator, aren’t just envisioning what the pass rush and roster is going to be in 2020 as you and I are. They plan three, four and five years out. They have constructed a vision for what their salary-cap structure will look like out to 2023 and beyond, how they may spend the extra tens of millions the cap is going to grow in coming years with the league’s new collective bargaining agreement.
They are planning when the contracts for their starters and big-ticket players are expiring, looking ahead to what it might cost to re-sign them and how that will affect the rest of the roster.
After Monday’s trade for Quinton Dunbar, the Seahawks will potentially have both their starters at the second-most difficult position in the spot with contracts ending after this coming season. Pro Bowl cornerback Shaquill Griffin’s rookie deal ends after 2020.
Schneider, Thomas and the Seahawks want as many known, fixed costs now to plan for the later. Clowney’s fixed cost is the biggest one potentially coming onto their books. A four-year deal would allow Seattle to spread Clowney’s cost over the length of the contract with attractive guarantees up front into Clowney’s pocket and more manageable, team-friendly cap charges for each year of the deal.
Having to do this all over again next March and change that longer-term plan does not leave the Seahawks better off this week than last.
Make no mistake, the Seahawks would rather sign Clowney to a four-year deal.
But for 2020? The Seahawks’ priority, their truth, remains the same as they were when free agency began. Fix the pass rush. That sickly unit that had fewer sacks in 2019 than every team but Miami must get Clowney re-signed.
Even for one year. The season likely depends on it.
