BRONCOS SIGN FORMER CHIEFS DE FRANK CLARK ON A ONE-YEAR, $7.5 MILLION DEAL
Former Kansas City Chiefs defensive end and two-time Super Bowl champion Frank Clark is staying in the AFC West after he signed with the Denver Broncos on Thursday, as first reported by The Score’s Jordan Schultz.
As per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Broncos head coach Sean Payton and Frank Clark spoke on the phone earlier this week and “hit it off” so it wasn’t long before terms were agreed between the player and the organization. Both parties were interested in getting a deal done. Clark, 29, signs on a one-year deal worth up to $7.5 million, which includes a $5.5 million guaranteed base salary. The rest of the $2 million is equally divided in incentives; $1 million in makeable and the other million in incentives that are perceived to be quite challenging.
“The situation with Sean Payton is good for me,” Clark told CBS Sports Josina Anderson on Thursday. “I get to play alongside Randy Gregory and stay in a division that I am very familiar with. I also want to help the Broncos get back to the mountaintop”
The 29-year-old, three-time Pro Bowl edge rusher is staying in the AFC West, one of the toughest divisions in football, which means Clark will get a chance to face his former team, the Kansas City Chiefs, twice this year. Nicknamed Frank “The Shark” Clark, the game wrecker at the line of scrimmage will look to rain on the “back-to-back Super Bowl” parade in Missouri in 2023.
One of the key defensive pieces to the Chiefs Super Bowl jig-saw puzzle, Clark was released by Kansas City in a cap-clearing move in March, as the team failed to find common ground with Clark’s agent, Erik Burkhardt. Having spent the last four years with the defending Super Bowl champions, Clark recorded a total of 127 tackles (only 32 of them behind the line), 59 quarterback hits, 23.5 sacks, six forced fumbles and one interception in 58 games.
The former Michigan Wolverine played in Seattle before that and collected a total of 136 tackles (35 behind the line), 72 quarterback hits, 35 sacks, eight forced fumbles and two interceptions in 62 games on his rookie contract.
The 2015 second-round pick is especially renowned for his postseason playmaking abilities. Clark has collected 13.5 sacks in the playoffs in his career, third-most in NFL history, trailing only former New England Patriots linebacker Willie McGinest (16) and Buffalo Bills legend Bruce Smith (14.5).
Clark will now have a chance to play for head coach Sean Payton, another standout coach with a Hall-of-Fame resume. Clark has only played under three coaches in his pro career, all of them Hall of Fame caliber coaches in Seahawks HC Pete Carroll and Chiefs HC Andy Reid.
In addition to Clark, Denver also added former Arizona Cardinals defensive end Zach Allen to their defensive line this offseason, signing him to a massive three-year, $45.75 million deal in March. One of the league’s best impact pass rushers, Allen finished 2022 with 48 tackles, four sacks, and an impressive three fumble recoveries. The Broncos defensive line now includes Randy Gregory, who was in Clark’s draft class in 2015, Baron Browning, Jonathon Cooper, Nik Bonitto, Frank Clark, and Zach Allen.
The Denver Broncos had the third-best defense in the league in points allowed in 2021 and with the new additions and a young secondary, this defensive unit is expected to take a leap forward in 2023.
The team also added former San Francisco 49ers first-round tackle Mike McGlinchey on a five-year, $87.5 million contract this offseason and signed former Baltimore Ravens guard Ben Powers to a four-year, $51.5 million contract in March as head coach Sean Payton chose to focus on building at the line of scrimmage. Powers and McGlinchey are effective pass and run blockers, and Powers was one of the more consistent starters on the Ravens offensive line in 2022. With both guys expected to be cornerstones for the Broncos offensive line over the next few years, Denver is setting up nicely for the next few years.
While it will take time for Sean Payton and general manager George Paton to build a Super Bowl-caliber roster, the Denver Broncos are definitely trending in the right direction if these new additions are anything to go by.
-Maher Abucheri
Twitter: @pabloikonyero
Photo: Jeffrey Beall. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.