HawkShack.com

So much for wanting to play for the Seahawks. It sounds like Clowney will be trying to leverage the maximum possible deal:

In short, Clowney has set things up to sign a contract bigger than the one the Hawks gave to Russell Wilson last spring. While Clowney’s contract will almost certainly cover a longer timeframe than the four year extension Wilson signed, with each passing day it appears more and more likely that Clowney has played his last down for the Seahawks.

That was always a risk when the Seahawks made the move to bring him into the fold on the eve of the season, and it is a move the team would be likely make again if given the chance, even with advance knowledge that Clowney likely leaves after playing out the season.

https://www.fieldgulls.com/platform/amp ... lbxKsmXgMA

So how much is too much? $25M/year?

While their breakdown of what a "market setting" contract would look like seems accurate, is Clowney or (more likely) his agent Bleacher Report's source? Agent's always start as high as they think they can get away with.

That said $25M per is what I was thinking before reading that.

Yeah, 25 mil would be too much, IMO. I really want the Hawks to resign him, but at some point the smart thing is to let him sign elsewhere. My top end on him would probably be 22-23 mil... and that would be a tough pill to swallow. At the end of the day he’s a stud at major position off weaknesses for us. We need to revamp our DL and it would be a HUGE blow to lose him. It will be interesting if other teams are willing to pay him as the best defensive player in the league. He’s never had the stats as a Watt, Donald, or Mack but he clearly was a force for us this year.

mykc14 wrote:Yeah, 25 mil would be too much, IMO. I really want the Hawks to resign him, but at some point the smart thing is to let him sign elsewhere. My top end on him would probably be 22-23 mil... and that would be a tough pill to swallow. At the end of the day he’s a stud at major position off weaknesses for us. We need to revamp our DL and it would be a HUGE blow to lose him. It will be interesting if other teams are willing to pay him as the best defensive player in the league. He’s never had the stats as a Watt, Donald, or Mack but he clearly was a force for us this year.

I was hoping for $20M, but that seems like a pipe dream.

Clowney is really hard to quantify. He's never put up the sack numbers or quarterback pressures like other top end DL's do, but he's a huge disruptive force that like a Donald, Watt, or Mack, will force teams to run away from him and on passing downs, demands double teams or chips.

If we sign Clowney for $25M, we almost certainly will have to let Reed walk. We still have holes on the offensive line that needs to be filled. Both Ifedi and Iupati are free agents and there's rumors that we might cut Britt to save some money.

Schneider has his work cut out for him.

Bye Clowney! He isn't even worth 20 million a year. I'd spend that money elsewhere.

There are indications that, as I suspected, the "market resetting contract" talk was agent speak and not so much Clowney himself. From Clowney's instagram page:

Yea, we'll see. As Mike Holmgren once said, everybody lies. Ever since the Steve Hutchinson debacle, I don't believe anyone until they put their ink on the paper.

That's good to see. Agents always playing hardball.