As we've already seen with the Cam Newton signing, Bill Belichick and the Patriots are not afraid of thinking outside the box in order to compete this season.
Not that it's all that different than any other season. The Patriots look for competition on their roster and economic anomalies, and usually keep a measure of flexibility in case the two situations should meet.
Darrelle Revis' signing in 2014 was certainly an example of that. The best corner in the game decided to take shorter term (1 year, $12 million) with the Patriots, to pay off on the field and in his next contract. Revis, as he usually did in his career, won on both counts with a Super Bowl ring, and a three-year, $39-million contract with the Jets in the offseason.
Newton's looking to do the same with an even worse contract (just over $1 million base salary). That took care of the biggest question mark on offense — and whether it's Newton or Jarrett Stidham (if he beats out a healthy Newton) who takes the job, the Patriots should win either way.
Should they think about doing that on defense?
Newton was the last remaining franchise-type player on the offensive free-agent market.
Former Texans and Seahawks end Jadeveon Clowney is the last stud standing on the defensive side.
Would a deal make sense for both sides?
A Step Back For A Leap Forward
For Clowney, signing a short-term deal with New England would be a smart move. He's only 27, so a one-year deal and a successful and visible season with the Patriots would allow him to hit the free-agent market again at age 28 — looking to land the final big contract in his prime.
Ideally, Clowney would land with a team that was a 4-3 team and turned him loose on the quarterback more frequently (a team like the Raiders could offer that opportunity) but absent that, the Patriots could be his best bet. Mark Anderson (one year), Chandler Jones and Kyle Van Noy are the Patriots' most recent edge players to turn their standout Patriots play into big deals elsewhere.
Certainly A Patriots Scheme Fit
Clowney is far from the player he thinks he is — Clowney is waiting for a deal to pay him over $20 million a season, which would be top 3 among edge rushers (Khalil Mack is the standard at $23.5 million) — but he's an impactful player despite never having put up double-digit sacks when they're not all that hard to come by.
From PFF.com:
Unfortunately, in Clowney's case, his low sack totals are reflective of a relative lack of impact as a high-end pass rusher. For a player who was touted as a special NFL prospect since at least high school, Clowney has never really become one of the top pass-rushers in the league. He has never topped 64 total pressures over a season, which in 2019 would have ranked just 16th. The highest PFF pass-rushing grade of his career has been under 80 (79.7), a mark 22 pass rushers bettered last year alone.
There is no doubt that Clowney is a special athlete, but he has developed into a far better run defender than he is a pass-rusher. He's earned PFF run-defense grades above 75.0 for five straight seasons, and one of those grades (2018) even topped the 90.0 mark.
He can make impact plays against both the run and pass, but consistency has always been his issue at this level. Even against the run, those plays translated to just seven tackles for loss or no gain over the season. Brandon Graham led all edge rushers with 17, and nine different players were in double digits.
Clowney, through his years in the Patriots' scheme with the Texans and Romeo Crennel, has become a very good run defender, which is vital for a Patriots edge player.
A Potential Starter On The Edge
The Patriots could use the help. They have some talent on the edge, but no one is a no-doubt starter or impact player. The Patriots' edge players right now:
Chase Winovich
John Simon
Josh Uche
Deatrich Wise
Shilique Calhoun
Brandon Copeland
Derek Rivers
I'm sure the Patriots will find a suitable rotation among the top six players on the list, with Winovich and Simon favored to be the two-down starters at least at the beginning. But it looks to be another season in which the Patriots will have to rely on schemed pressure instead of winning one-on-one battles. That's been fine the past two seasons, but teams seemed to catch up to the Patriots' stunts, twists and amoeba pressure at the end of last season.
Sometimes, with the game on the line, you just want a player who can whip their opponent one-on-one, and the Patriots appear to be in short supply of those (they usually are, as the defense is scheme and teamwork over individual talent).
But how much better would they be with Clowney and Winovich as the starters? Clowney would be the only guy on the line that offensive coordinators would have to gameplan for, and would give the Patriots two such players (Stephon Gilmore) overall on defense. Clowney, at 6-6 and 274 pounds, would also be a much better option than a Wise to play 3-4 end against top rushing teams (freeing up a spot for another edge player).
So as far as talent and scheme fit, Clowney would absolutely make sense for this Patriots team.
“Bill Belichick would make a monster out of him,” an NFC general manager told me in 2013, who likens Clowney’s physical attributes to those of former Patriots outside linebacker Willie McGinest, who was drafted fourth overall by Bill Parcells in 1994.
“Parcells would have loved to put [Clowney] at SAM linebacker outside and set that edge, and would have just loved this kid—the way he played, maybe not the kid himself,” adds the NFC personnel director.
Does Clowney Want To Be Great?
And those considerations make it a longer shot now that Clowney has a pro track record that is not all that impressive.
First and foremost, Clowney has never been a reliable player since being hailed as a generational star as the first overall pick of the Texans in the 2014 draft. In many ways, my evaluation of him for Sports Illustrated has held up well.
But there’s still a question of how much Clowney lives and breathes football. Those who know him well say he loved to play the game in high school, and during his first two years at Carolina. But this season, with the rib and ankle issues, and teams dedicated to stopping him, Clowney has appeared to grow frustrated on game days. If Clowney is already having problems dealing with his first football adversity, how is he going to handle the NFL, a league that is tough from down to down in practice, let alone games? That’s what teams headed for the top of the draft will be digging through as draft day approaches.
So far in his pro career, Clowney has played 16 games just once in six seasons and he doesn't practice all that much during the season since he's seemingly always dealing with an injury. All that led to frustrations with the Texans, and why they didn't really care all that much to ink him to a contract extension.
Aaron Wilson covered Clowney up close for the Houston Chronicle and gave us this report:
JD is extremely explosive and instinctive as a run-stopper, disrupting plays. He has outstanding functional strength for a guy with a basketball player build. He makes splash plays, but rarely sustains that effort throughout a game with a few exceptions, against the Colts while with the Texans and against the Eagles for both Texans and Seahawks. When JD is fired up, he's hard to block. As a pass rusher, he lacks polish and flexibility. Because he is a bit stiff and not a great bender and is often out of control when he busts into the backfield, he misses a lot of sacks.
JD has a ton of talent, is a good guy off the field and in the locker room and works hard when properly motivated. In the right system with the right coach, I think he can be a double-digit sack guy but he needs another pass rusher to spill plays to him and can't do it all on his own. He needs or needed to already have a better repertoire of moves. He has worked with Julius Peppers and Brandon Jordan to develop those moves, but has to sustain those private coaching efforts with drill work to create muscle memory and translate those drills into games.
JD can be somewhat frustrating to organizations because he has so much talent, but can be inconsistent and has high opinion of his financial value. In my opinion, an incentive-laden deal with ability to pay him $15 million to $18 million is the right number for him based on recent body of work.
The Money Matters
At some point in time, a deal for, say, $3 million plus incentives might have worked for the Patriots. There's certainly no way Clowney would get a Revis-like deal. The Patriots could afford to upset the financial apple cart in the locker room with a Revis because he's the type of player that is a unicorn and other players respect his stature and game as a future Hall of Famer.
If the Patriots gave Clowney, who has never been reliable nor a top-flight player, Revis money, there would be an open revolt.
And after giving Newton the veteran's minimum salary, there's no way they could maneuver the cap and pay Clowney anything beyond that. If the Patriots told Newton, the 2015 NFL MVP and a vastly more accomplished player than Clowney, they couldn't afford to give Newton more than the vet minimum, they can't now trade a Joe Thuney or cut a bunch of players to pay Clowney even $5 million for 2020.
If Clowney were to land with the Patriots this summer, it would have to be on the same deal as Newton ... and there's nothing in Clowney's NFL career that tells us he would ever consider that.
In a vacuum, Clowney to the Patriots for one year makes a lot of sense. In reality, it would seem to be very much a longshot.