When Jadeveon Clowney signed with the Dallas Cowboys after their Week 2 win over the New York Giants, the veteran pass rusher told reporters on Monday he expected to make his debut in Week 3 against the Chicago Bears.
That didn’t happen as the Cowboys listed Clowney as one of their inactive players for Sunday’s game. Now, Dallas could’ve used Clowney on the field as its defense did not register one sack on Bears QB Caleb Williams, who threw for four TD passes in a 31-14 win for Chicago.
After the frustrating loss to the Bears, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer explained his reasoning for sitting Clowney (h/t Jon Machota of The Athletic), which didn’t go over well with fans.
"At the end of the day, you just feel like he still needs a little bit of time to ramp up. He hasn’t played football. He wanted to go, but the concern would be if he had to play a lot of snaps, would he be able to do that? He’s doing everything in his power to be ready to go. He wanted to go, but he understands as well. Really good conversation with him before the game."Dallas head coach Brian Schottenheimer
Brian Schottenheimer's Reasoning for Not Playing Jadeveon Clowney Falls Flat
A couple of days prior, we found out through Stephen Jones that the Cowboys were leaning towards not playing the veteran defender in Sunday’s game. That decision, in hindsight, might not have been the right call based on what we saw at Soldier Field.
However, going back to Schottenheimer's comments, the two things that stand out are that he feels the vet needs more time to ramp up, which makes sense given that he just signed and didn’t have a training camp this summer.
The other thing was Schottenheimer’s concern about Clowney’s stamina if he had to play a lot of snaps. For some Cowboys fans, they would’ve been perfectly okay with the veteran pass rusher just getting some snaps on third downs, which could have been an easy way to get him some reps.
This fanbase saw Micah Parsons make his debut with the Green Bay Packers within a week of being traded and make an immediate impact. Given the state of Dallas’ defense right now, they cannot be so picky about when to play.
With that being said, if Schottenheimer is saying the same things about Clowney later this week, ahead of their primetime matchup against the Packers, then there might be a bigger cause for concern.
However, with another week of practice under his belt, it's possible the veteran finally suits up. The Cowboys will have to hope that's the case, because the Packers’ offense has the pieces to put points up, and Dallas could be in a similar position as we saw the last two games if their defense fails to make a positive impact again.