Brock & Salk discuss Clark’s return to Seahawks, his likely role

Oct 28, 2023, 10:25 AM

Frank Clark of the Seattle Seahawks with a QB hit on Dec. 16, 2018. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

BY BRANDON GUSTAFSON

Seattle Sports

The big news for the Seattle Seahawks this week is a shakeup at edge rusher.

Seattle Seahawks’ Carroll: Why Clark is back, impact of rookies recently

Uchenna Nwosu, who had 9.5 sacks last year and signed an extension this offseason, injured his pec and will miss the rest of the season.

To fill that void, the Seahawks signed a familiar face in Frank Clark, who the team drafted in the second round in 2015. That signing was made official on Thursday.

Clark had four very productive seasons in Seattle, registering 35 sacks, before being traded to Kansas City ahead of the 2019 NFL Draft. Since then, Clark has picked up two Super Bowl rings and landed at No. 3 on the all-time postseason sacks leaderboard.

But what should we expect from the now 30-year-old Clark as he re-joins the Seahawks?

Former NFL quarterback Brock Huard said that initially, Clark will serve as the team’s fourth option at edge rusher behind Boye Mafe, rookie Derick Hall and Darrell Taylor, though that could change.

“By the end, it may be him and Boye lining up in critical spots. It may,” Huard said during Thursday’s Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports. “I don’t know how much juice Frank has, I gotta be honest. I don’t know how much more in the tank (he has).”

Part of Huard’s reservation is how Clark’s offseason went and how his 2023 season began.

“Kansas City made the decision that (his) best was in the past and moved on contractually and everything,” Huard said. “Denver made the decision (to release him, and) it wasn’t as if Frank got a substantial contract this entire offseason. He sat out there for a long time, he was available for a long time. You drafted, you had other in-house answers, you paid Uchenna. And then ultimately when he gets released by the Broncos after playing in a couple games this year, there has not really been a market for him.”

Replied Huard’s co-host Mike Salk, “There’s no real reason why he should be toast at age 30. I actually have some hopes for this. And maybe I’m crazy. But I have some hopes that maybe he just wasn’t in the right fit in Denver, that there was something funky going on there.”

Huard thinks Clark being a veteran player with a lengthy NFL track record of success is a big part of why the Seahawks brought him back to Seattle.

“What’s important is he’s a grown up. And why it is a story is that room needed another adult,” Huard said. “That room loses their adult in Uchenna Nwosu as far as a football player … As an experienced, logged 100 games, as a football player, knowing the football culture, knowing the football system. All of that. This is all on the field, in the locker room, in the team meeting room, in the linebacker meeting room. The dude has pelts on the wall. He’s got Super Bowls. He’s been there. He’s been there and done it. And you need that.”

Hall is in his rookie season while Mafe, who leads the Seahawks in sacks with four, is in his second year.

Taylor is the most veteran of that trio as this is his fourth NFL season, though he did miss his entire rookie season in 2020 with a leg injury. Huard also thinks Taylor has work to do in order to have a bigger role.

“Darrell Taylor as far as a football adult, I think there’s still some real maturity questions there. And availability questions as he has been unable over the course of his career to be durable and available and post every single week,” Huard said. “Frank Clark posts as a football player. He’ll be available to you. And he is a 270-pound strong, powerful guy.”

Listen to the third hour of Thursday’s Brock and Salk at this link or in the player near the top of this story.