By Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
It’s official.
And it’s even more of a Seahawks steal than we thought.
The NFL on Sunday approved Seattle’s trade acquiring pass rusher and 2014 first-overall draft pick Jadeveon Clowney from Houston. As known Saturday, the Texans get defensive end Jacob Martin, defensive end Barkevious Mingo and a third-round draft choice from the Seahawks.
Martin has promise but is a second-year, part-time player. Seattle was likely to cut Mingo after his poor preseason, to save the team $4.1 million against its salary cap for this year.
A huge upgrade for a needy defensive line without giving up a front-line player nor a top draft choice? That’s a huge steal for the Seahawks.
Now comes Sunday’s good news for Seattle: The Texans are paying Clowney $7 million this year to play for the Seahawks.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, terms of the trade includes Houston paying a $7 million signing bonus to Clowney, who had been a holdout through the preseason. That’s to get Clowney to finally sign his tender as a franchise player so the Texans could then trade him.
The Seahawks are paying the remaining $8.97 million of his salary for 2019—not all his $15.97 million, as initially assumed.
That makes this an even sweeter deal for the Seahawks.
It makes it Grand Theft Clowney.
Seattle also agreed as part of the trade not to put the franchise tag on Clowney in 2020, according to Schefter. That means Clowney is either going to get a megabucks new contract from the Seahawks after this season, or through free agency next spring.
The trade becoming official also brought Geno Smith back to the Seahawks to be the backup quarterback to Russell Wilson. More on why in a minute.
How did a 26-year-old defensive end get all this leverage over the Texans, leaving them to make a deal that is getting them panned across the football world for how one-sided it is for Seattle?
Thanks to Le’Veon Bell.
The leading running back held out the entirety of the 2018 season by refusing to sign the Pittsburgh Steelers’ franchise-tag tender. Bell showed star players across the league the benefits of not dutifully playing a year under the tag, which through guaranteed money at an average of the top five salaries at his position restricts a player from even bigger riches in free agency. After his idle year, Bel signed this offseason with the New York Jets.
Players learned if you don’t sign the tender you are not under contract. Any attempt the tagging team may make to trade you to rid itself of a problem is subject to the tagged player approving the trade.
That’s what happened with Clowney. The Texans were talking to Miami and the Dolphins were making left tackle Laremy Tunsil available. That appealed to Houston, which needs a left tackle and has since it traded Duane Brown to the Seahawks two years ago.
But Clowney didn’t want to go to Miami. He wanted to go to Seattle.
The Texans, wanting to rid themselves of the distraction of Clowney’s holdout and not wanting to lose him for only a compensatory draft choice during free agency next spring, had next-to-no leverage in negotiating with the Seahawks. To them, it was worth $7 million to get two pass rushers plus the draft pick to send Clowney to Seattle.
He joins new end Ziggy Ansah as the Seahawks’ new bookend pass rushers.
It’s a Seahawks steal even if it’s only a rental of Clowney for this season, because of the low cost they paid in dollars and players sent away to get him.
How did Smith factor into all this?
The Seahawks released the veteran quarterback Saturday as part of the final cuts of the preseason. That left them with Wilson as the only quarterback on the 53-man roster. Because the trade had yet to become official, Seattle set its initial regular-season roster to include Mingo and Martin and not Smith.
Because Smith is a vested veteran, he did not have to pass through waivers. He technically became a free agent Saturday—but with a handshake agreement from the Seahawks that they would sign him back after the trade was official. Without waivers, the Seahawks did not have the risk of another team claiming Smith before they could bring him back.
Once the trade became official Sunday, Seattle had 52 players; they traded Mingo and Martin and added Clowney, a net of minus-one player; the maximum of 53 players briefly had become 52 on the roster. The Seahawks then announced later Sunday afternoon they had re-signed Smith to get back to 53 players.
That advanced roster maneuvering from Seahawks general mananger John Schneider left the Texans wholly out-maneuvered.
PRACTICE SQUAD
The Seahawks announced the first signings to the practice squad. They are players they released Saturday who then cleared league waivers: undrafted rookie wide receivers Jazz Ferguson and Terry Wright, guard Jordan Roos, offensive tackle Elijah Nkansah, tight end Jacob Hollister and cornerback Simeon Thomas.
