After a longer-than-expected wait, edge defender Jadeveon Clowney re-signed with the Cleveland Browns after spending the 2021 NFL season with the team. His contract, in typical fashion, is a one-year deal and at just $10 million, making it an absolute steal for the Browns.
Clowney’s impact since coming into the NFL has been hard to distinguish. As a college player, he was one of the most hyped defensive players of his generation and the worthy first overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. His NFL career hasn’t quite lived up to the lofty expectations, but he’s carved out a significant role on multiple teams over the last eight seasons.
Blessed with just about every physical quality needed to succeed in the NFL, Clowney hasn’t found a long-term home in the league, outside of his first five years with the Houston Texans. The last three seasons have seen Clowney suit up with three different teams – the Seattle Seahawks, Tennessee Titans, and the Browns – with all three stints producing different results.
Injuries slowed down Clowney’s progress with the Texans and he played a full slate of games just once while with the team, but he still made a name for himself as one of the most versatile edge defenders in the league. He could collapse the pocket as a pass rusher, set the edge as a run defender and, ever so occasionally, drop into coverage.
While his value as a pass rusher wavered in Seattle and Tennessee, Clowney was able to find his feet in Cleveland in 2021. After registering just 3 sacks across 21 games between his time with the Seahawks and Titans, Clowney tripled his raw production with the Browns with 9 sacks, half a sack shy of his career-high in 2017.
The real difference between his spells with the Seahawks and the Titans, and the Browns isn’t the fact that he was pressuring the pocket more, it was that he was finishing the job and getting to the quarterback. In his one year with Seattle, Clowney generated 48 total pressures but just three sacks. In 2021, he had just five more total pressures, but six more sacks.
The reason for Clowney’s lack of sack totals isn’t at all to do with his ability to rush the passer – he had the highest pass-rush win-rate in true pass sets of every edge rusher in his stints with the Seahawks and the Titans, per PFF. He might have lost a step due to lingering injuries, but Clowney’s talent is clear as day for those paying attention to the finer details.
However, the Seattle and Tennessee defenses from 2019 and 2020 both lacked the ability to generate pressure off the edge consistently, in spite of Clowney. There just wasn’t enough talent on either defense, so teams would instinctively chip and double-team Clowney more often. After all, he was the best pass rusher on the team.
Clowney didn’t have those sorts of pressures with the Browns in 2021, partly because of his partnership with Myles Garrett – one of the most dominant pass rushers in the NFL. Garrett has registered 58.5 sacks in 68 career games and, coincidentally, had a career-high 16 sacks in 2021.
It would be asinine to suggest that Clowney and Garrett don’t benefit from one another. Both have the ability to eat space, take on double teams, and to cause pandemonium in the pocket for quarterbacks. The two combined for 25 sacks and 131 total pressures in 2021, per PFF, and asserted themselves as one of the best edge rushing duos in the NFL.
Since Clowney was only on a one-year deal, there was anticipation that he might cash in on a strong season and sign a long-term deal elsewhere, but he held out, keeping a close eye on the market until the right move came around. The Browns did the same, adding depth rushers like Chase Winovich and Stephen Weatherly, and of course added Deshaun Watson at the quarterback position, but they kept cap space open in case a deal with Clowney was in the cards.
A few months, and much speculation later, Clowney signed another one-year deal with the Browns. The one-year deal means that Clowney, barring injuries, is in complete control of his future. He’ll be a free agent at the end of the season and can either choose to cash in should he have another strong season, or stick to one-year deals.
As it stands, Clowney has built a strong partnership with Garrett in Cleveland. They’ll be potential Super Bowl contenders come the start of the season and could have one of the best defenses in the NFL. While consistency has evaded Clowney for the last few seasons, it’s clear that he’s found a place to call home in Cleveland and, with his relatively cheap contract, that’s a win for everyone.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @ThomasValenfine
Photo: Erik Drost. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.