Browns: Team won by losing the Jadeveon Clowney sweepstakes

The Cleveland Browns were one of the many teams linked to current Tennessee Titans DE Jadeveon Clowney but by losing out on him they actually won.

From the minute Jadeveon Clowney left Seattle, Cleveland was rumored to be interested in the former No. 1 overall draft pick. Throughout the offseason, that’s all you heard, was how the Browns were targetting him and Everson Griffen to improve the pass rush. At one point the Browns even offered Clowney the largest offer he got in the offseason. When it was all said and down, however, the Browns lost out on the Clowney-sweepstakes and the former Seahawk and Houston Texans player signed with the Tennessee Titans.

Clowney signed for a one-year deal, worth just shy of $13 million.

So far, through the eight games that Clowney has played with Tennessee, it’s clear the Browns won the sweepstakes as Clowney has been absolutely terrible since signing with the Titans.

While he’s doing enough to warrant starting him, and will probably remain a starter following this season, Clowney was signed to a massive deal to help improve the pass rush. In fact, the Titans let several key players walk like DB Logan Ryan and current Browns OT Jack Conklin, and essentially replaced two valuable players from their 2019 season with Clowney; who has yet to register a sack this season.

While you can cite the “pressures stat”, all you’ll get back from this writer is a “Yeah? And?” If your best stat is how many times you almost did something, then you’re pretty awful at that thing. Clowney is a terrible force in the pass rush, and even when playing next to the best defensive player of their generation, J.J. Watt, Clowney still couldn’t get to the quarterback.

So this isn’t new or shocking.

Clowney is solid against the run, which is why he’s still employed, but he’s not by any means worth the $13 million he’s going to make this season. He has only 19 tackles on the season and four tackles for a loss. That said, he does have some nice stats as he has four pass deflections from the line of scrimmage, a forced fumble, and has six hits on the quarterback.

If he was making $1.3 million a year, you’d be happy with the production. If you were paying $13 million for Clowney’s 2020 production, however, you have to admit that it was a bad “get”.

While the Titans can move on after 2020, the Browns had offered Clowney deals for one, two, and three years respectively. Meaning that had the Browns won the Clowney sweepstakes, they’d be in some issues cap-wise heading into next season. After all, they’re probably going to have to cut salary to improve the defense, re-sign several key players, while also having to worry about the cap going down as well due to the loss of revenue in 2020.

So yeah, all things considered, Clowney rejecting the Browns multi-year deals was actually a win for  Cleveland.