Pros and cons of a Clowney reunion for Titans.
Jadeveon Clowney‘s arrival in Tennessee last offseason sent a shock of excitement throughout the Titans fanbase, as Jon Robinson succeeded in landing a high-profile free agent at a clear position of need.
However, Clowney’s 2020 campaign was a bit of a disappointment, as a knee injury shut him down for the final 9 games of the team’s season and he failed to make a consistent impact in games prior to his injury. Now a free agent, the Titans will have to decide whether or not to pursue Clowney again this offseason.
Vince Tacchi and Will Lomas give their side of the Clowney story, explaining why it does and does not make sense to bring the playmaker back to Nashville.
Before I begin…(Tacchi)
Before diving in to explain why I feel that the Titans should make an attempt at bringing back Jadeveon Clowney, I do need to air out grievances that any Titans fan would have about Clowney’s time with the team thus far.
No, he was not worth the $12 million deal he signed with the Titans on September 6, 2020. Yes, his decision to sit out all of training camp and sign with a team right before the season started should leave a bad taste in your mouth. And once again yes, bringing back a largely unproductive player after his season got cut short due to injury doesn’t sound like the most sensible thing to do.
But considering the current landscape of this defense, and how it hamstrung the team as a whole, Clowney suddenly begins looking a bit more attractive. And here’s why:
His stock is at an all-time low (Tacchi)
Considered one of the most athletic and dynamic defensive ends in the league, Clowney simply failed to stuff the stat sheet during his eight healthy games last season and did not flash his playmaking ability for a defensive unit that desperately needed it. After spending the second half of the season on IR, on a small-market team that rarely picks up media buzz unless their offense is being praised, Clowney’s no longer the hot ticket item that he considered himself to be the last offseason.
His original plan to mirror defensive legend Darrelle Revis and continue signing one-year deals with competitive (and high paying) teams will need to take a detour due to his unfortunate 2020 season. Clowney turns 28 next week and will be better off signing a multi-year deal to re-establish himself as one of the league’s best defensive players.
This is a good opportunity for the Titans to sign a high-potential defensive player on a team-friendly deal while he’s still under 30. Clowney would be silly to not consider establishing roots with the Titans, a team that is built up to compete now and can provide contractual stability for the next several years. Clowney also has a young family, and one can assume he would not want to be moving them around the country on a yearly basis.
The defense desperately lacks talent (Tacchi)
It’s been discussed at length and is no longer a point of conversation: the Titans defense was abysmal in 2020. While the group was marred by poor coaching and many injuries, it was clear that there was a massive lack of talent, especially in the front 7.
Clowney will never be the 10+ sack per year guy that any team, let alone the Titans, desires, but he provides an immediate elevation in talent level to the defense. The Titans need to move away from the days of rotating guys like Derick Roberson, Brooks Reed and Tuzar Skipper opposite of Harold Landry and hoping their pass-rush-by-committee can hold up over a 16 game season.
Even if he’s not showing up in the box score every Sunday, Clowney’s first eight games with the Titans showed that opposing offenses do prepare for him on a weekly basis. His game-breaking ability is an inherent knack, and certainly, something that opponents are aware of and try desperately to avoid.
When considering the supporting cast on defense, and the defenses that out-lasted the Titans in the playoffs, Clowney’s abilities stand out even more. As Tampa Bay showed throughout their Super Bowl run, elite defensive talents are needed to survive and progress through playoff games, and the Titans lack of playmakers on defense reared its ugly head multiple times throughout the season. Once you start considering the Titans’ needs on defense and what Clowney can bring to the table, he starts checking a lot of boxes.
He’s a good teammate (Tacchi)
I’ll reiterate an earlier point here: Clowney choosing to skip out on training camp and signing right before Week 1 was a completely understandable “business decision,” but perhaps a bit….annoying?…from a fan’s perspective.
Fortunately for Clowney, professional athletes tend to understand and respect how other professional athletes handle their respective businesses and money. While fans lamented about how he should have signed before came to be best prepared for the season, I do not think the other guys in the locker room held or even considered, that grudge.
Clowney is not a rah-rah leader or an obvious vocal presence, but I do think he demonstrated qualities that prove him to be a good teammate, which is an important trait when you remember that this Titans defense did more finger-pointing than any unit in team history last season.
Clowney was often seen in pre-game workouts preparing with Harold Landry, visibly going through technique drills with the young player, and providing the type of veteran guidance and presence that Landry can only benefit from. I can understand the perspective to not look too much into little moments like these, but nobody was coaching up Landry pre-game once Clowney’s injury ended his season.
A related point can be made for Jeffery Simmons. Simmons had a thrilling start to 2020, benefitting from having a guy like Clowney play a significant number of snaps next to him for all four quarters. Clowney never put himself on a pitch count, and the attention he received from offensive linemen opened up opportunities for Simmons to make splash plays early in the year. It’s no wonder why Simmons’ production halted once Clowney went to IR, as he deservedly received the overwhelming majority of attention from opponents.
Considering all the above, I cannot help but think that signing Clowney to a team-friendly deal is a win-win for both parties. The Titans must improve defensively and bring in players that can help them compete against the league’s best offenses. I caution against letting one incomplete season from Clowney sour your thoughts on him too much, as a player of his playmaking caliber does not come around often, and he might be there for the taking should Jon Robinson want to keep the door open to bringing him back to Tennessee.
Not so fast (Lomas)
No doubt that Jadeveon Clowney is the biggest name that the Tennessee Titans have signed in several years, and the only rivals that I can think of are Malcolm Butler and Brian Orakpo. Unlike those two, Clowney’s impact on the field ranged from nothing to harmful.
Jadeveon Clowney played in 8 games last season and it is well documented that he ended up with a whopping 0 sacks and 4 TFLs despite playing 74% of the snaps or more in 7 of those 8 games.
While the narrative is that the defense played better with him on the field, that certainly wasn’t true on passing downs. In the 8 games that Clowney played in, the Titans defense as a whole only had 8 sacks which stacks up poorly next to the 11 sacks that they got in the 8 games without him. That doesn’t include the playoff game where it would have been 16 sacks in 9 games including the second sack of the year by one of his replacements (Brooks Reed).
It was also this early stretch of pitiful play that showed just how bad the 3rd down defense was going to be. The hole dug by the Titans while Clowney was on the field was so bad that even the slightly better play that they got without him, couldn’t keep them from being named the least effective third down defense in NFL history.
Why was he such a drain on this defense (Lomas)
On top of that, Clowney’s biggest boom or bust “trait” isn’t his athleticism, size or technique. Instead, Clowney has made a lot of money (though less than he thinks he is worth) with his gambling.
There are times where Clowney will ignore his responsibility as a contain player or will get out of his gap in an attempt to make plays. When he was in Houston, that was alright because he was playing with J.J. Watt and a mix of other capable defensive linemen who could pick up the slack.
In Seattle, it worked a little bit as well because he was playing with Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright behind him preventing too many gashing runs.
The problem is, he didn’t get the support he needed to succeed from the rest of the Titans defenders or the coaching staff. I’m not saying that Clowney’s lack of success is because of the people around him, but I AM saying that to be successful he needs people to clean up after his messes.
Not just about money (Lomas)
Dealing with the cap in free agency is going to be tricky for a lot of teams this year, but the biggest “cost” of re-signing Clowney has nothing to do with money.
Mike Vrabel already showed that he doesn’t care about results as long as you listen to what he says and as long as you are friends with him. He showed us that with the Shane Bowen double-down.
Jon Robinson is a different guy and he hasn’t made it a habit of rewarding players who don’t produce. One “cost” of bringing Clowney back is that you are telling the locker room that if your name is big enough it doesn’t matter whether you show up to training camp or whether you even produce on the field, you will be given a second chance.
Also, I’m not sure that the rest of the team even remembers that Clowney was on the roster. With limited social gatherings outside of football and with just a handful of practices with the team before the season started, most of the Titans players probably spent more time with Desmond King than they did with Jadeveon Clowney.
Time equity (Lomas)
The other “cost” is that if you commit to bringing Clowney back, he isn’t going to be a rotational player. The money that he is going to command and his body of work says that he is going to get 75% of the snaps on defense and he will be the true starting EDGE opposite Harold Landry.
Not only does that completely take you out of the free agent market for EDGEs, but it changes the way you have to view EDGE going into the 2021 NFL Draft.
Would Jon Robinson draft an EDGE in the first round with no intention of him taking more than 25% of the snaps? Even when the Titans drafted Jeffery Simmons, he quickly became a guy who played 50% of the snaps or more.
Is Clowney worth kicking the need at EDGE until 2022? Or would the Titans’ time and money be better served by letting him walk and hoping that another team falls in love and the Titans get rewarded with a 2022 compensatory pick?