Analyst Says Titans Should Spend to Add Clowney

The primary question is whether the Tennessee Titans will sign free agent defensive end Jadeveon Clowney this offseason. It will continue to come up as long as the three-time Pro Bowler remains a free agent.

Related to that is whether or not the Titans should even bother?

Tennessee already has signed quarterback Ryan Tannehill to a hefty contract extension and hopes to do the same with running back Derrick Henry. It is a team that reached the AFC Championship game last season and that already has an elite talent on the defensive line in 2019 first-round pick Jeffery Simmons.

At least one person believes they should.

“If there was ever a time for the Titans to do something that was maybe a little fiscally irresponsible, maybe that doesn’t make sense on the roster and you just file it under ‘you can’t have too many pass rushers but screw it, we’re going to win a Super Bowl,’ this could be the time,” NFL Network analyst Kyle Brandt said Friday on Good Morning Football during a panel discussion about the Titans and Clowney. “I don’t see a real better window for them than this.

“… The AFC South, I don’t think, is ever going to get any easier. The Jags? Well, they’ve got some things going on. The Colts? Maybe Rivers will work out. And the Texans, in my opinion, just traded away their best player this offseason.”

The question of Clowney’s potential addition to Tennessee, of course, was raised Wednesday when head coach Mike Vrabel conducted a video conference with Titans media.

“I have not talked to JD,” Vrabel said.

He was slightly more enlightening when asked again the next day in an interview on SiriusXM NFL radio.

"I have not talked to JD personally," Vrabel said. "I would say that [general manager] Jon [Robinson] and I continue to evaluate the roster and the available free agents. As of now I would say that nothing is off the table. But nothing is certainly on the table either. He is not on our team."

Vrabel was Clowney’s defensive coordinator in 2017 with the Houston Texans. That was the best season to date for the first overall pick in 2014 and the only time in his six-year NFL career he played all 16 games in a season.

Clowney also has an injury history that is cause for concern among teams that are weighing whether or not to pay the kind of money he ultimately will command. However, he recently declared himself healthy and will be at 100 percent when the season starts.

“I think it’s a money issue and the Titans have a young man named Jeffery Simmons who they really like, who was a first-round pick last year, who might be even better than Jadeveon Clowney,” NFL Network analyst Peter Schrager said. “… I don’t know if Simmons needs Clowney. I don’t know if Clowney needs the Titans.”