Charlotte, NC – Jadeveon Clowney rebounded in several different teams during the last part of his career, but the veteran Edge Rusher had never been released … before Thursday.
Two weeks after taking a pair of dry passes on the second night of the NFL draft, the Carolina Panthers cut clowney in the largest of alignment movements before the start of the Friday recruit camp.
The press release ends the passage of Clowney with its hometown team a year earlier than expected. The native of Rock Hill, SC, who was the n ° 1 choice of Southern Carolina in 2014, signed a $ 20 million contract over two years with the Panthers last March. Clowney, who linked the defensive line player A’Shawn Robinson for the team’s head with 5 1/2 bags in 2024, said it was not the end of his days of play.
“I’m going to play really well. You can mark my word on this. I don’t care about where I end up playing, I’m going to play very well,” said Clowney Thursday afternoon during a telephone interview with Athletics.
“I think I played well for Carolina (last year), given the circumstances that were revealed for me. I played with a bunch of guys who were injured last year. And I ended up playing extremely well for them. So that’s what it is. I can give myself the game.
The future of Clowney with the team had been in question since the Panthers selected Edge Rushers Nic Scourton of Texas A & M and Principlelen of Ole Miss Miss in the second and third round, respectively. Managing director Dan Morgan was not hired when he was asked that night if the Panthers planned to go from Clowney, 32.
“We are still working on the list,” said Morgan. “We are still talking about things.”
But Clowney said he had the feeling that his time with the panthers could approach a fence when he reported the start of team activities organized a few days before the draft.
“I went to day 1 otas and they told me a little that they did not expect me to be there. I had a feeling that they wanted me to be out of the building,” he said. “I was just like, ‘you could all tell me when I came here during the offseason. I have a little meaning, however.
Morgan contacted several teams before the draft to assess Clowney’s commercial interest, then bought it again without success following the draft, according to a source of the league. The Liberation of Clowney creates $ 7.8 million in salary space for the Panthers, with $ 6 million in dead money, according to the ceiling. This gives panthers a little more financial flexibility if they want to pursue security of veterans or an addressing depth to another position.
Clowney played 14 of the 17 games last year for a defense that lost the veterans Derrick Brown and Shaq Thompson against the end of the season in the first month. DJ Wonnum, another Rusher Edge who signed last March, missed the first nine games due to a set of reverse after a quadruple surgery.
The rush of the passes improved when Wonnum returned in November. But more important problems have remained for a defense that abandoned the most points in the history of the NFL while becoming only the third team to authorize 3,000 yards on the ground in one season. It was not what Clowney planned to get out of a season 9 1/2-Sack in 2023 with Baltimore, who lost against the Chiefs of Kansas City during the AFC championship match this season.
“Many guys were injured in advance. The guys in which I went with the intention of playing, I did not end up playing. Many guys on which they counted who were supposed to be in our team, that they expected to play games and they paid … could not.
With Clowney now a free agent, the Wonnum, 27, becomes the most experienced voice of a room of outdoor seconds which includes Scourton, Umanmelen, the acquisition of free agent Patrick Jones II and the return players Amare Barno, DJ Johnson, Thomas Inoom and Kenny Dyson.
Meanwhile, Clowney, who has been training in Houston since this first day of OTAs, will look for a new start elsewhere.
“I had more in the tank than people think,” said Clowney, who went to three consecutive pro bowls with Houston from 2016 to 2018. “I continue to bring it, and they will continue to count me.
(Photo: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)
