Which Tennessee Titans players should be rooting for a Clowney signing?
At this point, many Tennessee Titans fans have already made the assumption that Jadeveon Clowney is signing with the team.
That is a dangerous assumption to make, but the fan base has been peppered with quotes about how much the Titans front office and coaches like “JC” and they have name-dropped him several times in tweets.
While there is still plenty of time for heartbreak, let’s talk about what Jadeveon Clowney actually does on the field because you might be pretty surprised.
There is a little bit of a misconception about how Clowney is used, and I didn’t realize how incorrect some of these misconceptions were both by me and by nearly everyone I have listened to.
The prevailing description of Jadeveon Clowney is that he is a heavy-handed EDGE who can line up inside or outside, but whose best comparison would be an improved version of Derrick Morgan. Someone who sets the edge vs the run and who kicks inside on pass rush downs and who can play every down.
To an extent, that is true. When I went back and watched his tape over the last few days, Clowney was strong at the point of attack and he won with violent movements paired with a very competent bull rush.
However, something I was surprised to see is that Clowney really wasn’t a guy who could play on third down and who thrived on first and second down, it was just the opposite.
Jadeveon Clowney can win on first and second down whether that means setting the edge or penetrating in the backfield, but he was used much more often as a sub-package EDGE. In that role, his job was to rush the passer and do anything he could to affect the opposing QB.
In fact, over the last four seasons, Clowney has played over 700 snaps in each of them. During that stretch, he has played 1,179 snaps as a run defender and 2,183 as a pass defender, which means he has spent 34% of his snaps as a run defender.
That is good news and bad news for some Titans players, but I wanted to focus on the Titan who benefit the most from that newfound knowledge (as well as an interesting stat I saw yesterday).
Harold Landry
After all of that talk about Clowney being a pass rusher first and a run defender second, you might think that his impact would look something like this:
1. Clowney comes in to rush the passer
2. Most of the time that will be opposite Landry, but there could be times where Landry is taken off instead.
3. They aren’t going to spend all that money on Vic Beasley and Jadeveon Clowney and still let Harold Landry lead EDGEs in snaps.
And maybe some of that is true, but you have to remember that the Titans have already said that they want to work to keep Landry fresh for pass-rushing downs. To me, that says that they would likely want him to play every (or nearly every) 3rd down or obvious pass rush situation.
They can do that without leaving Vic Beasley on the sideline as well, and you only have to look to Mike Vrabel‘s tendencies last year and the year that he was the DC for Clowney to see how that works out (but more on that in a minute).
Vrabel loves to use a stand-up A-gap/B-gap defender who can rush from the inside and last year, that job went to Rashaan Evans because the Titans want to use him as a pass rusher when they can. However, Vrabel also used Clowney in this role when he was the DC in Houston.
I would expect this is how the Titans get Harold Landry, Vic Beasley and Jadeveon Clowney on the field at the same time.
The good news for Landry (and this is big) is that he finally gets another EDGE opposite him who can rush the passer. The only other time that happened was in the 9 games where Cameron Wake played for the Titans last year, and in those games, Landry had 7 of his 9 sacks compared to just 2 sacks in the 7 games without Wake.
Only one player helped others get sacks better than Clowney according to this stat:
https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/1285954939693551617
So you are combining someone who thrives with a competent EDGE opposite him, and an EDGE who helps those around him produce as well as nearly every other defender in the NFL. That is the dream for Landry stans.
David Long/Amani Hooker
Remember how I said that Rashaan Evans spent so much time as a stand-up A-gap defender on pass-rushing downs? It turns out that Vrabel did that with Clowney during his time in Houston. Rashaan Evans is credited with 2.5 sacks in 2019, but neither of the full sacks he was credited with came from standing in the A-gap.
Both sacks were late in the game when Evans was spying the QB and when he closed quickly in space rather than blitzing. So I am going to guess that Evans will have another job on 3rd down in 2020 if Jadeveon Clowney is available.
If Clowney is taking that stand up rusher spot, then he doesn’t really make sense for him to be on the field on third down. That opens up an avenue for David Long Jr. or Amani Hooker to see more snaps on 3rd down.
Long made more plays than he should have given the small number of snaps he was given and Amani Hooker was painfully close to making a few plays last season that I think he will make now that the game has slowed down for him.
Whichever players get these chances should thrive and both should frequently be a part of rotational packages in the future.
Kevin Byard
In Kevin Byard’s breakout season where he led the league in interceptions, the Titans had more sacks and QB hits than in either of the next two seasons. It isn’t hard to see the correlation between pressure caused by the front seven and his interceptions.
This isn’t something that is lost on Byard either, something that was noted by Michael Gallagher from the Nashville Post:
"“Obviously I’m not John Robinson or Mike Vrabel,” Byard said. “But I would say, as a safety, the most beautiful thing as a safety that you can have is some bad pass rushers in front of you that’s getting after the quarterback. A lot of times you get a lot of tipped balls, batted balls. It’s a lot of opportunity to make plays on the ball. If we could add a guy like him, an elite pass rusher, somebody that can get to the quarterback and also be great in run defense? I’m definitely all for it.” “Harold Landry is a young guy who I feel like is going to be one of the best pass rushers in the league in the future,” Byard continued. “If we can get Clowney it would just be more power that we have on our defense.”"
Combining all the points we have talked about, Byard should be sitting behind a pass rush that features a former sack leader, one of the best “support” EDGEs in the NFL and a player that Byard called “one of the best pass rushers in the league in the future.”
On top of that, he will likely be playing behind two rangy linebackers in Jayon Brown and David Long, and don’t forget that we are one year removed from Brown having a 6 sack season.
That could mean the biggest year yet for Byard, or conservatively a season that is at or slightly below his career-high. Even if he falls short of his career-best 8 interceptions, and still manages to pull in 7 then he would have 24 in his first 4 years as a starter.
Since 1983, no one in the NFL has done that and maybe that would finally give Byard the recognition he deserves.