The Cleveland Browns brought back defensive end Jadeveon Clowney on a one-year deal to keep Myles Garrett’s pass rush partner in the fold. Clowney officially signed his deal Wednesday and returned to the field for the OTA practice.
According to one report, Clowney turned down bigger deals to return to Cleveland to play with Deshaun Watson. The two were teammates with the Houston Texans, the team that drafted them both.
Last year, Clowney signed a one-year, $8 million deal with the Browns. The structure of that deal included void years to help offset the cap hit in 2021. Once Clowney was not on the roster at the start of the 2022 league year, those void years became $3.6 million in dead cap for this season.
We now have details of Clowney’s newest deal with Cleveland:
Jadeveon Clowney’s deal with the Browns:
Signing bonus: $8M
Base salary: $1.25M
Per-game roster bonuses: $750K
Incentives: $1M
Max: $11MIt includes 4 void years. Factoring in his $3.6M dead cap charge from his last deal, Clowney counts a total of $7,067,647 against the cap.
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As noted at the end, Clowney will count just a little over $7 million toward the team’s cap this season but the four void years will lead to cap space being used in future years even if Clowney is not on the roster.
Over two years, Clowney will earn around $18 million from Cleveland. During his 2020 free agency, there were reports that the Browns offered him a multi-year deal for big money and had the highest offer but he declined.
With this deal done, Andrew Berry turns his attention toward franchise-tagged TE David Njoku. Njoku mentioned that he was next after Clowney signed and a report says the two sides are close on a deal.