Anyone who watches football at anything more than a cursory level knows that the quarterback sack is an incomplete and misleading statistic when it comes to determining the effect of a pass-rusher. While it’s nice to have a guy who can get to the quarterback, it’s even better to have a guy who provides consistent pressure at a level that can destroy the intentions of offensive coordinators on a week-to-week basis. There are also those plays in which an edge-rusher will affect an offense in ways that open things up for teammates — plays that don’t show up on a stat sheet but make a difference on the field.
So, when we look at the season totals for Seahawks defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, there’s the traditional way, which is to say that he’s been a disappointment with just three sacks in 489 snaps. A wider view, after you add his nine quarterback hits and 32 quarterback hurries, shows 44 total pressures. The even wider view is to posit that when the Seahawks traded for Clowney on Aug. 31, they had to transition him from the “spinner” role he played with the Texans to a more traditional edge or LEO role that has been a staple in Pete Carroll’s defense.
“It’s just different,” Clowney said in his first press conference after the trade. “I get to get back in there going vertical, not dropping. Just really putting my head down and grinding. When you’re going forward, you don’t think about it a lot. That’s the best thing about this defense is you’ve got guys behind you that can make all plays and guys up front just getting moving and get going and cause havoc. That’s what I like about this.”
When the trade happened, I outlined what Clowney was to Houston, and what he could be to Seattle. Through the first nine weeks of Seattle’s season, Clowney had come close to a bunch of sacks; missing them by that much as he transitioned to Carroll’s ideology and the specific mechanics of his system.
“I thought he was penetrating and causing problems and making tackles,” Carroll said after the Seahawks suffered a 30-16 loss to the Ravens in Week 7. “He had a game where he had a chance to make a lot of tackles. I don’t know what his numbers wound up being, but he’s playing really hard.”
In that game, Clowney had four quarterback hurries but no sacks, so it was a continuation of both the transition and the frustration involved in any such transition. The tape showed that Clowney certainly wasn’t a bust, but his breakout game hadn’t yet happened.
In Seattle’s 27-24 win over the previously undefeated 49ers, it most certainly did. Coming into that game, Seattle’s defense had put up just 14 sacks, with 17 quarterback hits and 107 quarterback hurries. If any defense was due for an explosion of meaningful quarterback pressures, it was this one. And against San Francisco, Seattle amassed five sacks, four quarterback hits, and 14 quarterback hurries. All was once again right in Carroll’s world, in which meaningful quarterback disruption is a non-negotiable factor.
Clowney 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.
“He’s been active since we started,” Carroll said after the game. “I think he understands where to take advantage of the scheme more so now, about where we send him — we move him a lot and do a lot of things with him to try to get him in the spaces. He knows better how to use that to make the most of it. He’s an exciting football player. He can do so much stuff and sometimes, he does the wrong… he takes the wrong (gap) because he just hasn’t been with us enough. But he is maximizing more so and that’s why I would like to think he had a big night tonight.”
No argument here, and as much as the stats tell a positive story, they don’t tell the whole story. On at least two occasions, Clowney affected 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo enough for other Seattle defenders to swoop in for their own sacks. Let’s see what the tape shows.
Here, Seahawks nose tackle Al Woods (No. 72) does a fine job beating left guard Laken Tomlinson (No. 75) to get to Garoppolo. But the quarterback is trying to hit receiver Deebo Samuel (No. 19) on a quick slant, and had Clowney not beaten right tackle Mike McGlinchey (No. 69) right off the snap and jumped in the air to muddy Garoppolo’s picture and force him to hesitate, Woods probably doesn’t get there in time.
And here, defensive lineman Quinton Jefferson (No. 99) sacks Garoppolo on a nice hustle play. Jefferson starts by aligning himself with San Francisco’s run-action off the snap, but decodes the play and spins back inside. But without Clowney working his way through fullback Kyle Juszczyk (No. 44) and tight end Ross Dwelley (No. 82) and nearly taking Garoppolo down himself, Jefferson isn’t going to get there in time. Jefferson seems to recognize this, providing mock-CPR after Clowney dramatically goes to the ground following his whiff. Jefferson was flagged for a highly questionable Lowering the Head to Initiate Contact penalty; the refs may have felt sorry for Garoppolo at this point.
Clowney wasn’t just great as a pass-rusher in this game — he was outstanding against the run, and that’s something that’s been consistent through most of the season. There are times when Clowney will over-pursue runners, and his athleticism works against him, but he was technique-perfect against one of the NFL’s most diverse run games on Monday night. Watch here how he takes on pulling right guard Mike Person (No. 68), blows up the block, and evaporates running back Tevin Coleman (No. 26) for a one-yard loss. Clowney’s combination of strength, quickness, and wingspan makes him nearly impossible to deal with one-on-one when he’s mechanically sound.
And here, Garoppolo tries a little sweep pitch to Samuel. The South Carolina alum ran a 4.48 40-yard dash at his combine, and he’s quick enough in space to think he’s going to take this around the edge for a positive play. What Samuel didn’t factor was that the 6-foot-5, 266-pound Clowney ran a 4.53 40-yard dash at his combine, and has the closing speed required to limit Samuel to a four-yard gain. Clowney could have been busted for a horse-collar tackle here, but he seemed to get enough leverage to stop the illegal tackle before it became too obvious.
As we’ve said, Clowney’s evening of disruption was about far more than sacks. He blew up several intended passes with his ability to hit and hurry. His ability to swing past McGlinchey with a vicious inside move on this Garoppolo attempt to receiver Marquise Goodwin (No. 11) turned the play into an airball for the quarterback and a do-over for the 49ers.
Clowney’s one sack mattered more than most.
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 (No. 97).
This quarterback hurry and subsequent incompletion comes off a neat trick the Seahawks have liked to do for years — they’ll line two defensive ends in close formation over a tackle and a guard. The idea here is to force a one-on-one against the tackle and to force the guard to have to play like a tackle. It certainly doesn’t work here for the 49ers, as Jefferson takes Tomlinson out, Clowney erases left tackle Joe Staley (No. 74) with a quick push, and the subsequent pressure leads Garoppolo to throw an incompletion (and near-interception) that seemed to be aimed more at linebacker Bobby Wagner (No. 54) than it was for receiver Kendrick Bourne (No. 84).
Of course, Clowney’s splash play of the game was his 10-yard fumble return for a touchdown. But here, Staley actually does a decent job of working Clowney through the arc, and it’s defensive tackle Jarran Reed (no. 91) who gets the work done by overpowering Person and creating the strip-sack. These things tend to happen when a defensive line is working in concert, and it could be said that Seattle’s line was doing so for the first time this season.
This game was the first real distillation of Carroll’s belief that, over time, Clowney could be transformed from an off-ball spinner and outside “endbacker” to a true defensive end. Carroll has great success with Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett in previous years when the Seahawks brought the veterans in and got them aligned with his theories, but he’s never had an end with Clowney’s insane assemblage of physical talent. If this is the way Clowney is going to play the rest of the season, it could reverse Seattle’s dismal defensive trends this season, and an 8-2 team with a lot of close wins could be seen as a legitimate Super Bowl contender.
