Benson Mayowa is Seahawks’ latest move to better pass rush. Jadeveon Clowney still in play
It’s a Seahawks edge-rusher reunion.
First, they brought back their former first-round pick Bruce Irvin in free agency. Now it’s the return of Benson Mayowa. Seattle and the 28-year-old defensive end who began his NFL career with the Seahawks seven years ago agreed to a contract Wednesday, according to Mayowa’s representatives DEC Management.
The deal is worth $3 million guaranteed. It could be as much as $4 million plus with incentive clauses, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.
Mayowa had a career-high seven sacks last season for Oakland. He played just 302 snaps, the lowest of his career since his rookie season with the Seahawks when he played just two games. All seven of Mayowa’s sacks for the Raiders in 2019 came in the first seven games. His playing time plummeted from there.
My pal Jerry McDonald, Raiders beat writer for the Bay Area News Group, told me Oakland (now Las Vegas) did not make much of an effort to re-sign Mayowa after his contract ended with the 2019 season. The Raiders targeted free agent Carl Nassib instead. They signed the veteran pass rusher to a three-year contract worth up to $28 million, with $17 million guaranteed up front.
Mayowa has 20 career sacks in his career with Oakland (2019), Arizona (2018), Dallas (2016-17) and the Raiders (‘14-15).
He had no sacks in two games for the Seahawks in 2013. He made Seattle’s roster as a tryout player and undrafted rookie free agent seven years ago out of the University of Idaho.
Seattle released him among its final roster cuts at the end of the 2014 preseason.
The deals for Irvin and Mayowa are incremental moves to boost what coach Pete Carroll has said is the Seahawks’ biggest priority this offseason: the pass rush.
The key move remains re-signing Jadeveon Clowney. The Seahawks remain in the running to do that, four weeks into free agency.
That became more evident with Wednesday’s news Clowney is dropping his asking price from the $20 million-plus per year he had been seeking last month, according to ESPN’s Dianna Russini.
Adjusting his aim to $17-18 million per year, Clowney is coming back into Seattle’s financial ballpark. The Seahawks are believed to have offered him $18.5 million per season in a multiyear deal. The fact he hasn’t signed that offer, and the leak that he has dropped his price, show he hasn’t received attractive competing offers and is trying to solicit them.
“We’d love to have him back,” Carroll said at the league’s scouting combine five weeks ago.
“There’s no question we want him, and that he liked being here.”
Mayowa’s seven sacks last season in 15 games as rotational player for the Raiders were three more than Seattle’s team leader had in 2019. Second-year man Rasheem Green totaled four.
Clowney had three sacks. He missed three of the final five games of the regular season and played both playoff games with a sports hernia. He had surgery on that in January.
“He played through some serious pain at the end of the season for us,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said in February.
Miami was the only team with fewer sacks last season than the Seahawks’ 28. The lack of a disruptive pass rush was why Seattle had road playoff games again, the team’s biggest road block to getting back to the Super Bowl. If the Seahawks don’t improve pressuring and sacking quarterbacks in 2020, they won’t get to the Super Bowl this coming season, either.
This is a passer-and-pressure-the-passer league. The Seahawks absolutely have the passer in $140-million franchise man Russell Wilson.
They absolutely need to presser the passer more.
To do that, hey need to re-sign Clowney. They then need to add another veteran edge rusher, possibly free agent Everson Griffen. And they need to get production from Mayowa and Irvin approaching what each veteran had in 2019, when they had 15 1/2 sacks combined.
That is, more than half of what all Seahawks had last year.
