How will Seahawks use Jadeveon Clowney and Ziggy Ansah on the field together?
Sep 12, 2019, 12:43 PM
Jadeveon Clowney played 48 snaps for the Seahawks in his debut. (Getty)
(Getty)
The Seahawks could have both Ziggy Ansah and Jadeveon Clowney active against the Steelers in Week 2 — a much-hyped about pairing that fans didn’t get a chance to see in Week 1. But how will the veteran pass rushers fit on the field together?
In Thursday morning’s Blue 42 segment of Brock and Salk, 710 ESPN Seattle’s Brock Huard explained how he expects Seattle to use Clowney and Ansah.
VIDEO: Seahawks already trying new things on defense with Clowney
First, here’s what head Pete Carroll had to say about the duo.
“Let’s just wait and see. Give us a little bit of an advantage until they see how we do it. But they need to be on the field at the same time. They’re too good and we’re not going to alternate those guys. So we’ll figure that out. We were working at it in the little bits we had last week and we’re just starting to kind of tap into it. But they’ll both be playing at the same time a lot of the time.”
“It’ll be easy in nickel,” Huard said. “It’ll be easy in obvious passing situations. Third-and-seven plus? They’ll both be at opposite edges, just like we have seen through the years when you’ve had multiple pass rushers. The bigger challenge is: what do you do on early downs? I was reading through some of Mike Tomlin’s press conference and he talked about the Seahawks and one of the challenges the Steelers will have with them — and it’s why, to me, Jadeveon Clowney is so essential. Tomlin’s like, well, they have the big heavy D-line, then they’ve got the lighter D-line, then they’ve got the nickel D-line. And I think the one guy that can cross over all of that is Jadeveon Clowney. Because he loves to play the run. Ziggy is capable of doing it; he’ll hold his point. But he’s not nearly as disruptive as Clowney is against the run. And that is where, when you’ve got Bryan Mone and Al Woods, you don’t really want to have Rasheem Green and Branden Jackson. You want somebody that’s got some twitch. So I think you’ll see Clowney a little bit more. He played 40-some snaps last game; I think he’ll play more snaps than Ziggy this time around. But I’m anxious to see those two collapse the edge on both sides for Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday. And you will see them in nickel fronts.”
Listen to Huard’s full Blue 42 segment in the audio clip embedded above.
Listen to the Brock and Salk Show weekday mornings from 7-10 a.m. on 710 ESPN Seattle. Subscribe to the podcast here.
