Titans need to sign Jadeveon Clowney now, worry about Vic Beasley later

The Titans need to get a deal done with Clowney now.

There are reports that Jadeveon Clowney doesn’t have any motivation to sign a deal soon, but the Tennessee Titans need to change that now.

I want to say first that if the Titans don’t sign Clowney and if Vic Beasley is a no-show, I still believe that the Titans EDGEs grade out as a “C” at worst.

Harold Landry had 10 sacks last year if you count the playoffs and all he needs is a little bit of help to reach double-digits in the regular season.

Opposite him, you still have:

-UDFA Derick Roberson who racked up 3 sacks and 3 TFLs in a handful of snaps at the end of the season.

-2019 5th round pick D’Andre Walker who was considered to be an early Day 2 prospect before teams learned that he would likely miss time with an injury.

-Kamalei Correa who had 6 sacks in his last 8 games if you include the playoffs.

-Reggie Gilbert, who the team traded a late pick for last year and who was a decent backup for most of the season.

That isn’t a terrible group to have and each player has a defined role. But, obviously, that position only gets better with the addition of Clowney and to a lesser extent, Beasley.

Since we are talking about defined roles let me tell you something that sticks out to me now that I have watched more Seattle Seahawks games in preparation for a potential Clowney signing.

New ideas on what Clowney will be.

It has been said so many times that you may think it is true, but Jadeveon Clowney isn’t someone who is going to spend a lot of time grinding it out on 1st and 2nd downs.

Because he is so powerful, people tend to think that Clowney is someone who plays a lot of run downs and who kicks inside or comes off the field for better pass rushers on some/most 3rd downs.

In reality, Seattle used Clowney as a pass rusher who could play base downs sometimes, rather than someone who played base downs and who could also rush the passer sometimes. When they did use him as a run defender, it looked like the majority of his time was spent crashing gaps or setting the edge instead of using his power to stall blockers and allow him to read the blocks and make a play.

I want to put this out there because there is a misconception that either Clowney or Beasley might be able to come in and play 80% of the snaps like Harold Landry will, and that just isn’t very likely.

Last year, Harold Landry played 80% or more in 14 of 16 games, while Clowney and Beasley combined to hit that mark in 8 of 29 games last season. They are both rotational players that will be brought in to supplement Harold Landry, not the other way around.

Now, that may feel like I am throwing cold water on signing Clowney, but this is why I think it is more important than ever to sign Clowney now.

Clowney and the DT shortage

The Tennessee Titans traded Jurrell Casey for a 7th round pick, but they mainly traded him because he was going to cost a lot of money over the next 3 years and he probably was going to be relegated to one of these rotational roles sooner rather than later.

However, that did leave the Titans a little short-handed at DT. Right now it looks like Jeffery Simmons, Daquan Jones, Isaiah Mack, and Larrell Murchison will be the top-4 DTs and I think that group will be solid even though they will be a little bit top-heavy.

The problem with that group is that no one is going to provide a quick interior pass rush, and that is something that the Titans lacked last season. Combining a lack of interior pass rush with conservative play calling is a great way to have a bad defense in the NFL.

If the Titans are hoping to find that on the open market, then they need to look around because as of this morning, five defensive tackles have opted out of the 2020 season and if a few of the big names at DT go off of the market, then that position gets thin really quickly.

Clowney would be huge in that role because Mike Vrabel loves to use a player like Clowney as a stand-up player mugging the A-gap, or as a nickel DT if they are big enough. While he didn’t do a lot of that last year with the Seahawks, you can see Clowney doing a lot of that with Vrabel as his in 2017.

Going back to the last slide, if Clowney’s role is primarily as a pass rusher to use opposite Harold Landry, then this is a way that you can get guys like Derick Roberson into the mix on 3rd downs if you want speed rushers on the outside and someone to get quick initial pressure up the middle.

What about Vic Beasley?

Right now, I am operating under the assumption that Beasley isn’t going to be a factor for the Titans this season. Whether that is because he shows up late to camp or whether that is because he doesn’t who up at all, I think we all need to take a step back and reduce whatever role we thought Beasley might have with Tennessee.

Let’s say that he is in camp with the Titans and he fully commits and he is ready to go Week 1. How can Beasley and Clowney both co-exist?

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I think the Titans starting EDGEs in this scenario would be Harold Landry and either Kamalei Correa or Jadeveon Clowney.

These two would probably combine for at least 80% of the snaps on the opposite EDGE, with someone like Reggie Gilbert or D’Andre Walker making up the rest and occasionally subbing in for Landry.

On sub-package downs, I think the starters on the EDGE would be Landry and Jadeveon Clowney, which should be a great way to help recreate that outstanding production that Landry had when Wake was on the opposite side.

Then I think the Titans would go full-on Nashville Predators mode and sub in Vic Beasley and Derick Roberson as a tandem.

After that, they would probably mix and match the EDGEs and play around with Clowney or Rashaan Evans standing up in the A-gap, but that would likely be how they deployed their EDGEs with everyone in the fold.

The main takeaway though should be that the Titans don’t really need Beasley or Clowney, but if they had to choose one of the two that they need less, it would be Vic Beasley who probably doesn’t factor into the defense as much as we may have initially thought.