Signs the Jadeveon Clowney Saga may be coming to an end, with Seahawks “always competing”
The leveraging for Jadeveon Clowney has intensified.
First, coach Pete Carroll said this when asked if the Seahawks are still in on the three-time Pro Bowl pass rusher they need to re-sign: “Always competing. Always competing.”
Then, an hour later, the counter points.
ESPN’s Dianna Russini reported “Jadeveon Clowney could be with a team a very soon. I’m told the Tennessee Titans and the New Orleans Saints are both making strong pushes to sign the free agent. Both teams want him on the field by Monday and are making their pitches.”
Then later Thursday, from NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero: “The Saints are sending an all-out blitz to try to sign Jadeveon Clowney, who has spoken multiple times to coach Sean Payton... At least two other teams still involved as Clowney’s extended free-agent saga nears a close.”
The agent for the three-time Pro Bowl pass rusher was certainly doing his job.
Why the flurry of items in one afternoon about a free agent who’s remained unsigned since March, through the coronavirus pandemic and now through everyone’s training camp since Seattle first offered him a multiyear contract? Who just last week was rumored to be contemplating sitting out the entire 2020 season?
The same reason he’s been waiting all this time to sign somewhere: he wants to get paid. In full.
For Clowney to play in week one and maximize all 17 weeks of his salary for this season, he must first go through the league’s protocol for initial COVID-19 virus testing in this unprecedented NFL season. That protocol since the start of training camp in late July has been five days: three tests in the first four days upon reporting to a team facility, then a fifth day to enter the building for the first time and take a team physical.
Clowney would need to sign by this weekend to get through the COVID-19 testing protocol in time to play in opening games Sept. 13.
That’s why the wait he’s been on for almost six months seems about to end.
The Seahawks made Clowney their top priority to re-sign all offseason, to boost what was the second-worst sack unit in the NFL in 2019. Clowney played on it, while hurt. Seattle traded with Houston for him 12 months ago on the premise the team would be able to agree with him on a new contract for 2020 and beyond.
But he initially wanted close to $20 million per season, top-of-the-market cash. He wasn’t going to get that coming off a surgery in January for a sports hernia.
In May, in his first public comments on the matter since he was in the Lambeau Field locker room following Seattle’s playoff loss at Green Bay in January, Clowney told Houston KRIV television where he lives in the offseason he remained hopeful in returning to the Seahawks, who not only want but need him for their weak pass rush.
“You know, I hope we can work something out, if anything happens,” Clowney told Mark Berman, the sports director at Fox 26 in Houston. “I did like it up there. I love Russ (Russell Wilson). I love all the guys I played with. J. Reed, B. Jack, all them boys in my D (defensive-line) room.
“I respect them guys.”
“J. Reed” is Seahawks defensive tackle Jarran Reed. “B. Jack” is defensive end Branden Jackson. They got tight with Clowney in the 4 1/2 months after the Seahawks traded with the Texans to acquire the pass rusher Sept. 1 through Seattle’s playoff loss.
Clowney went up to John Schneider’s office the day after that defeat in January and told the general manager he loved Seattle and the team’s locker room, and that he would love to find a way to re-sign.
Clowney had his surgery a couple weeks after last season ended. He injured his core during the first half of his dominant game in mid-November, the Seahawks’ win at the previously unbeaten 49ers.
The injury kept Clowney out of three of Seattle’s final five regular-season games. Last season wasn’t unusual for the first pick by the Texans in the 2014 draft. He has completed an entire season injury free just once in his six years in the NFL.
That is why unsigned Clowney was in a gym in Houston for much of the league’s closed offseason. It’s also why he was hosting a television station filming him in May going through another workout with his personal trainer. His mission was to show teams from afar what he couldn’t show them in person during the coronavirus pandemic: that he is healthy.
The COVID-19 virus and travel restrictions across the NFL and country kept Clowney from taking physical exams with team doctors. That kept other teams from making offers competing with Seattle’s—which was believed in mid-March to be for four years and up to $18.5 million per season. Other teams didn’t want to give Clowney that kind of money or more without having their doctors verify he is healthy and worthy of all that cash.
“It might have (affected this) a little more than I expected,” he said in May of the coronavirus restrictions. “I don’t know what people think, if they are thinking I am hurting because of what I went through, because of the core or previous years, or what they’ve heard. I don’t know.
“I just want to let people know I am ready. I am ready to go whenever the time comes. And whoever I sign with is going to get the best version of me.”
Clowney said then he was willing to wait until travel restrictions from COVID-19 ease enough for him to go take physicals—and thus maximize his chances for multiple offers. He’s had them from the Seahawks, Titans, Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles—and now, reportedly, the Saints.
“I’ve got a few (offers), but the process for me is, really, just weighing my options and taking my time.,” he told KRIV in May. “I ain’t in no rush right now. I know what’s going on right now in the world with the coronavirus and everything. It’s a slow process, until people, teams can really see me, see what I’ve got and can give me physicals and everything.
“So I ain’t in no rush. I’m just waiting on the right opportunity, and the right timing for me. It’s all about my timing and opportunity. So, just stay focused, stay locked in, keep working, and it’s going to present itself when the time is right.”
That time, with Saturday’s roster cuts to set initial, 53-man rosters for the regular season, seems just about right now.
