Titans acquire amazing, inconsistent force in Jadeveon Clowney

Early Sunday morning, it was made about as official as it was going to get before it actually happened — edge-rusher Jadeveon Clowney intends to sign a one-year deal with the Titans that will pay him more than $12 million for the 2020 season.

So, we’re probably talking about a deal that gives the veteran a bit more than $12 million base, with up to $15 million if performance incentives are met. The wisdom of waiting to “cash in” in a 2021 season in which the salary cap is estimated to drop to $175 million per team due to 2020 revenue shortfalls is a separate matter, but we’ll see how that goes.

That aside, It’s a nice bump for a Titans team that made it all the way to the AFC Championship game without a true sack artists. Harold Landry led the team with nine sacks and 51 total pressures, and while Landry is a player on the rise, he hasn’t quite put it all together yet in a week-to-week-package. Lineman Jurrell Casey was the team’s second-best pass-rusher last season, but Casey was traded to Denver back in March. They’re also taking a one-year, $9.5 million flyer on former Falcons pass-rusher Vic Beasley, but Beasley hasn’t been That Guy since he led the NFL with 15.5 sacks in 2016.

The Titans did not name an official defensive coordinator to replace the legendary Dean Pees, who retired after the 2019 season. But outside linebackers coach Shane Bowen is one guy in charge of the pass rush, and one assumes head coach Mike Vrabel, whose history with Clowney has already been illustrated, will have a voice in how this all works as well.

The Texans, Clowney’s first NFL team, traded him to Seattle last September 1 as part of Bill O’Brien’s “Everything Must Go!!!” fire sale, and the estimation was that with the Seahawks, Clowney would be used less as a multi-gap “spinner,” and more as a pure edge defender.

“He’s a rare football player,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said after the deal was made. “He’s got special skills that most guys just don’t have – It’s great quickness, his reaction time, the length that he can use, his ability to run, his instincts. He’s made a lot of plays in the backfield over the years. Instinctive plays, penetrating and causing problems, and we plan to allow him to do that in our scheme. It’ll fit really well with what we’re doing. We saw a really great fit, whether it’s early downs or third down stuff. He’s pretty much got what you’re looking for.”

But what about the sacks, you may ask? Because when talking about what Clowney brings to the field, that always comes up. Over his six NFL seasons, Clowney has just 32 sacks. That’s less than half of the total Chandler Jones, who leads the league with 78.5 sacks from 2014 through 2019, has put up. You’re going to have a hard time convincing anyone who’s box score scouting that he’s worth more than $12 million for a season — I mean, Vic Beasley has 37.5 career sacks, and he was an afterthought in the Titans’ plans, at least in public perception.

And it’s not like Clowney’s total pressures reveal a top-tier effectiveness hidden in pedestrian sack totals, as is the case with some pass-rushers.

Clowney is a different cat. You have to watch the tape and hope you’ll get the guy making superhuman plays all over the place, as opposed to the Seahawks end who struggled at first in a new system, and faded down the stretch with a core injury. His official sack total was 4.5 including the postseason, and Pro Football Focus had him with 58 total pressures. Za’Darius Smith of the Packers led the league with 105 total pressures, so again, it isn’t as if Clowney’s sitting on some hidden statistical value.

And it’s not that the sack and pressure totals are a problem if Clowney is balling out and creating opportunities for others — which he does, at times. But there are also dismemberments like this from 2018, when Indy’s Quenton Nelson (who is the league’s best guard by far, to be fair) absolutely takes Clowney to the woodshed.

You have to hope you’re going to get stuff like this, from Week 5 of the 2018 season. Here, Clowney gives Cowboys left tackle Tyron Smith — one of the NFL’s best players at his position — a ridiculous okey-doke at the line of scrimmage, allowing him to drop Ezekiel Elliott for a 1-yard loss. You rarely see the hyperathletic Smith this out of position, but Smith isn’t expecting the end he’s blocking to exhibit footwork you might see from a slot receiver.

In Week 15 of the 2018 season against the Jets, Clowney drops Sam Darnold by setting left tackle Kelvin Beachum up for failure. Watch how Clowney pins Beachum inside with a jab step and then moves quickly outside to ride the arc. Beachum, who allowed just three snaps and three quarterback hits in 604 pass-blocking snaps that season, simply can’t recover in time.

And this sack of Colt McCoy in Week 11 in 2018 shows how the Texans used Clowney as an off-the-ball linebacker in different gaps. Specifically, Houston liked to use Clowney as a gap penetrator against guards, who generally don’t have the physical attributes to match up to what Clowney does. Here, rookie guard Geron Christian has no answer for Clowney moving around him. Christian can barely get his hands up before Clowney moves past him for the takedown. You may expect more of this under Vrabel’s charge.

And then, there was Clowney’s signature game with the Seahawks — a 27-24 Week 10 overtime win in which a healthy Clowney got the hang of Seattle’s pass-rush concepts and absolutely demolished every San Francisco offensive lineman in his path. He was absolutely the star of the show, with one sack, all four of Seattle’s quarterback hits, and six of the team’s 14 hurries. Those hits and hurries were important. Clowney’s ability to swing past right tackle Mike McGlinchey with a vicious inside move on this Garoppolo attempt to receiver Marquise Goodwin turned the play into an airball for the quarterback.

And Clowney’s one sack really mattered. Once again, McGlinchey is Clowney’s huckleberry, and once again, it’s not a fair fight. This time, he gives the right tackle a little foot-fake to get him off his base and then puts McGlinchey on a trackback to the quarterback. He then strips Garoppolo of the ball — a fumble recovered by defensive tackle Poona Ford.

To date, Jadeveon Clowney has mixed highlight plays most ends couldn’t manage with instances in which he’s overwhelmed by more consistent opponents, and periods of time in which, even with his ridiculous talent, he’s not as much of a factor as he should be. The Titans are banking on the idea that they’ll be able to bring the most out of him. If they can buck the odds and pull it off, it could be the difference between a trip to the Super Bowl, and falling one game short again.