The Seattle Seahawks lost edge rusher Boye Mafe in free agency, and while the team didn't add a player at the position in the 2026 draft, general manager John Schneider did sign veteran Dante Fowler recently as a free agent. The team doesn't have to stop there, however.
No team can have too many edge rushers, and one logical fit in the Pacific Northwest would be former Seahawks and former Mike Macdonald disciple with the Baltimore Ravens, Jadeveon Clowney. The issue is that FOX Sports NFL analyst Ben Arthur thinks Clowney could also be a good fit for the San Francisco 49ers.
"The Niners could use some insurance behind star edge rusher Nick Bosa (coming off a torn ACL), as their pass rush struggled in 2025 with Bosa missing 14 games," Arthur writes. "The 33-year-old Clowney, the first pick of the 2014 NFL Draft who's now played for seven teams, has had at least 8.5 sacks in two of his past three seasons."
FOX Sports NFL analyst has Jadeveon Clowney landing with a Seattle Seahawks rival
San Francisco managed to win 12 games last season despite the fact they had the worst pass-rush in the league. For a playoff team, it was historically bad. No postseason team had ever had as few sacks as the 49ers had in the regular season (20).
The magic of Clowney is that he is much more than just a pure pass-rusher. That is what Dante Fowler is. Should Seattle bring back Clowney, who played in the Pacific Northwest during the 2019 season, he would be the kind of three-down player that Macdonald knows he can rely on.
That's because in Clowney's one season with the Ravens in which Macdonald was the defensive coordinator (2024), the edge rusher had a career-high 9.5 sacks and 19 quarterback hits, his most since 2018. He also continued to play his elite level of run defense, arguably Clowney's best part of his game.
This is also why he doesn't need to end up with the San Francisco 49ers. The NFC West rival struggled so greatly last season because it had so many injuries. Future Hall of Famer Fred Warner played in only six games after he had missed only one in his previous seven seasons.
Elite edge rusher Nick Bosa played in just three. Adding those two alone greatly increases the chances that San Francisco's quarterback pressures would have been much higher. With them back and the possibility of signing Jadeveon Clowney, the 49ers would become much more difficult to defeat.
Clowney shouldn't be expensive for anyone to sign, with maybe a deal for one year in the $6-8 million range. John Schneider should make that happen for the Seattle Seahawks before John Lynch of the 49ers has an opportunity to do so.
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