THE TALK AROUND Rock Hill, South Carolina, was that when Jadeveon Clowney started peewee football, he looked like a man among boys. The locals would cast sidelong glances his mother's way, and when Josenna would insist he wasn't full-grown, that he was just the right age for peewee and she had the birth certificate to prove it, they'd concede, but not without indignation. "Fine," they'd say. "But don't let him hit my kid."
And there he was, some 15 years later in the summer of 2014, once again making everyone else look out of their league. The ink was barely dry on Clowney's rookie contract with Houston, and he was already doing unspeakable things to Denver's offensive line all week long in preseason scrimmage.
"Most guys, they'd take about three or four steps to get to you, to that point of contact," says Duane Brown, the Texans' Pro Bowl left tackle at the time. "And he was leaping off the ball and getting there in two." Brown had lined up against Clowney enough that preseason to relish the break these joint practices in Colorado afforded him. So he watched with commiseration when the Broncos' own Pro Bowl left tackle, Ryan Clady, flailed and whiffed and let Clowney make Peyton Manning's life downright miserable for the run of intersquad practices that week in August.
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He's 30 now, still young for civilians but positively grizzled in NFL years, and when he says it out loud -- I'm 30 years old -- his eyes grow wide, like he can't quite fathom the passage of time. It has been 10 years since he entered the league, and in that time he has been deemed: the second coming of Lawrence Taylor; a letdown; the phenom he was supposed to be; a bust; a resurgent player; a recalcitrant player; a player, who -- this season, and here, with the Ravens -- is enjoying the renaissance of his career.
He has been everything to everybody -- fans, teams, himself -- but through it all, Brown says he has always remained Jadeveon Clowney. An idea, a presence, a force.
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MAYBE IT STARTED when he played at South Pointe High and chased a guy down from about 80 yards -- his high school coach, Bobby Carroll, swears that's exactly how long the rundown was -- and tackled him short of the end zone, at the 4-yard line. Says Carroll: "When Nick Saban watched that play, he said, 'Hey, where is this guy? I gotta meet him.'"
It could've been the hit -- nay, The Hit -- his sophomore season at the University of South Carolina, when he bulldozed a Michigan running back in the Outback Bowl and the impact was so seismic that the runner's helmet flew off and up, as if some cosmic force had yanked it skyward. "I had Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, Michael Strahan," says Mike Waufle, who spent 20 years overseeing defensive lines in the NFL. "I had Darrell Russell. I had Chris Long, and Robert Quinn, Kyle Williams, and Aaron Donald. You see a play like that, and you say, 'This guy is a game-changer.'"
Or perhaps it was just his aura. Johnathan Joseph, a teammate from his Houston days, remembers watching one-on-one blocking drills during Clowney's rookie preseason, and seeing his fellow Texans try to slide to the back of the line when they did the math and realized they'd be taking on Clowney. "You don't really see that in the NFL," he says. "We're all professionals. We're all supposed to be tough. But he was striking fear in guys from the first time he took the field."
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www.espn.com
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Hey my boy Jadeveon is still getting the ink as here's quite a fairly lengthy piece about him in ESPN going into the AFC championship game this weekend.
I confess JDC is still one of my favs except Sunday when he's going up against my Chiefs (my top team only after our one and only Houston Texans).
And there he was, some 15 years later in the summer of 2014, once again making everyone else look out of their league. The ink was barely dry on Clowney's rookie contract with Houston, and he was already doing unspeakable things to Denver's offensive line all week long in preseason scrimmage.
"Most guys, they'd take about three or four steps to get to you, to that point of contact," says Duane Brown, the Texans' Pro Bowl left tackle at the time. "And he was leaping off the ball and getting there in two." Brown had lined up against Clowney enough that preseason to relish the break these joint practices in Colorado afforded him. So he watched with commiseration when the Broncos' own Pro Bowl left tackle, Ryan Clady, flailed and whiffed and let Clowney make Peyton Manning's life downright miserable for the run of intersquad practices that week in August.
**
He's 30 now, still young for civilians but positively grizzled in NFL years, and when he says it out loud -- I'm 30 years old -- his eyes grow wide, like he can't quite fathom the passage of time. It has been 10 years since he entered the league, and in that time he has been deemed: the second coming of Lawrence Taylor; a letdown; the phenom he was supposed to be; a bust; a resurgent player; a recalcitrant player; a player, who -- this season, and here, with the Ravens -- is enjoying the renaissance of his career.
He has been everything to everybody -- fans, teams, himself -- but through it all, Brown says he has always remained Jadeveon Clowney. An idea, a presence, a force.
**
MAYBE IT STARTED when he played at South Pointe High and chased a guy down from about 80 yards -- his high school coach, Bobby Carroll, swears that's exactly how long the rundown was -- and tackled him short of the end zone, at the 4-yard line. Says Carroll: "When Nick Saban watched that play, he said, 'Hey, where is this guy? I gotta meet him.'"
It could've been the hit -- nay, The Hit -- his sophomore season at the University of South Carolina, when he bulldozed a Michigan running back in the Outback Bowl and the impact was so seismic that the runner's helmet flew off and up, as if some cosmic force had yanked it skyward. "I had Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, Michael Strahan," says Mike Waufle, who spent 20 years overseeing defensive lines in the NFL. "I had Darrell Russell. I had Chris Long, and Robert Quinn, Kyle Williams, and Aaron Donald. You see a play like that, and you say, 'This guy is a game-changer.'"
Or perhaps it was just his aura. Johnathan Joseph, a teammate from his Houston days, remembers watching one-on-one blocking drills during Clowney's rookie preseason, and seeing his fellow Texans try to slide to the back of the line when they did the math and realized they'd be taking on Clowney. "You don't really see that in the NFL," he says. "We're all professionals. We're all supposed to be tough. But he was striking fear in guys from the first time he took the field."
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Jadeveon Clowney's reinvention propels the Ravens
For practically a decade, a shadow of should-haves has stalked the lineman. But his impact in Baltimore has been clear in a 9.5-sack season.
www.espn.com
Hey my boy Jadeveon is still getting the ink as here's quite a fairly lengthy piece about him in ESPN going into the AFC championship game this weekend.
I confess JDC is still one of my favs except Sunday when he's going up against my Chiefs (my top team only after our one and only Houston Texans).
