The Green Bay Packers have been excellent on defense this season, despite the fact that their top pass rushers have struggled.
Green Bay has been reaping the benefits of forced turnovers, leading the NFL with 17 takeaways through Week 7, which has led to a differential of +6 that is good enough to tie the team for third in the league. However, relying on turnovers to carry the defense is a precarious position in which to be, and the Packers know they need to get better rushing opposing quarterbacks off of the edge to help keep the defense as productive in the latter part of the season as it has been to this point.
That is not to say that Green Bay hasn’t been crowding QBs in the pocket. The Packers have amassed 20 sacks on the season, which is good enough to tie them for 7th thus far. However, the players the franchise is paying to rack up those numbers haven’t been playing up to the level of their contracts.
Because of that fact, Seth Walder of ESPN suggested a trade pitch on October 23 in which the Packers deal for Jadeveon Clowney of the Carolina Panthers.
“The Packers rank 30th in pass rush win rate, and Rashan Gary and [Preston] Smith rank 39th and 43rd out of 50 qualifiers at edge,” Walder wrote. “I’m sure Green Bay would like to rely more on 2023 first-round pick Lukas Van Ness, but if he qualified for that same list, he’d be tied for 47th.”
Clowney, 31 years old, is currently playing on two-year contract worth $20 million total in Carolina.
Jadeveon Clowney Among Top NFL Pass Rushers in 2023
Clowney, a three-time Pro Bowler and the No. 1 overall pick of the Houston Texans in the 2014 draft, hasn’t been a revelation off the edge this year either with only 2 tackles for loss and 1 sack to his credit.
However, Clowney posted a pass rush win rate of 25% just last season as a member of the Baltimore Ravens, which tied him for fifth in the entire league alongside Pittsburgh Steelers star T.J. Watt. Clowney finished the year with 9.5 sacks, tied for a career high, and has tallied 53.5 sacks over the course of his career.
ESPN’s Rob Demovsky indicated that the Packers have already begun shopping Smith in the same multi-author piece in which Walder suggested Green Bay pursue Clowney. Smith is on a $52 million deal and makes bigger money than Clowney.
Packers May Need to Add Help to Remain Atop NFC North Division
If the team decides to get rid of Smith, it definitely needs to replace him, and the Panthers are 1-6 and going nowhere this season, which means older players like Clowney who aren’t central to the franchise’s long-term future should be available at the right price.
The league’s trade deadline is November 5, which gives the Packers just 10 days to improve their pass rush before the chance will evaporate until next March (save for pulling someone out of free agency who remains available halfway into the season).
The NFC North Division has shown it will be exceedingly difficult down the stretch, as the Detroit Lions (5-1), Minnesota Vikings (5-2) and Chicago Bears (4-2) are all playoff contenders. As such, Green Bay is likely to at least attempt to add defensive help before the deadline.