FRISCO, Texas — Jadeveon Clowney wasn’t ready to give up the chance to play in the NFL again.
“Being home on that couch, man, you’re ready to get up off it,” the Dallas Cowboys‘ newest defensive end said.
He was working out daily, making sure he was ready to play another season when he was called, but he had added a side job. He was a volunteer coach for his son Jahlil’s football team.
“It’s actually fun,” Clowney said. “I ain’t no yeller. I was just, ‘This is what it is.’ I talk to the kids, ‘You got to develop this mentality. It’s a mentality. It’s a physical game.’ I try to tell me son at a young age and put it in his head now: You ain’t coming out here to play around. It’s a physical game.
“Even at a young age he goes out there and I tell him, ‘If you don’t want to be physical, you’re going off the field.’ Even at 9 years old.”
Clowney had the cachet of a long NFL career, three Pro Bowl picks and 58 career sacks to impress not only the kids, but also the coaches.
“I went to every practice. I was coaching probably like three teams telling the D-line, ‘Look, this is what you need to do.’ It’s guys that never played or first-year guys. It was fun.
“The coaches were like, ‘No, keep doing it.’ I didn’t want to step on nobody’s toes, ‘This is your team, but if I see something’ … He was like, ‘Please coach.'”
Now Clowney, 32, gets to put the coach hat down and the helmet on.
“I’ve got seven prime-time games [including Thanksgiving and Christmas] to prove, show the world,” said Clowney, who had 5.5 sacks last season for the Carolina Panthers. “That’s my whole thought in coming down here. I get to play prime time and put myself out there again, and the sky’s the limit again for me.
“I don’t feel like I’m getting old. Terence Crawford just beat [Canelo Alvarez at 37] years old, so I’ve got a lot left in the tank. I just got to get back into it and have fun doing it.”
Let’s get to know the Cowboys’ first-round pick a little bit better off the field.
If you weren’t playing football, what would you be doing?
“I would be a sports psychologist. Sports psychology is something that really helped me, starting at [prep school] IMG Academy, really just focusing on the mental aspect of the sport, and I feel like I became a better athlete and person due to it.”
What is your favorite football memory?
“Fourth-and-31 [Alabama’s win against Auburn]. Well, no, I can’t say that anymore. This past weekend, getting that big win against the Giants.”
What’s your prized possession?
“My Escalade. It’s my first big purchase. I still have it to this day. I got it my sophomore year in college. [It’s got] 77,000 miles. Big Shirley’s still got a lot of life left.”
How did you get No. 52?
“It’s funny. I actually wanted 54 when I got to Alabama, but Tyler Steen for the Eagles, he transferred in and he wore 54 at Vanderbilt, so they asked me, ‘Book, hey, we’ve got a senior transfer coming in. Y’all wear the same number. Do you want to give up the number?’ I was like, ‘Do I have a choice?’ They were like, ‘Uhhhhhh, yeah,’ so I said I want to keep 54. I come in the next day, and I just got 52 in my locker.”
Who is your most influential teammate?
“Gotta be JC Latham. Just somebody who I essentially grew up with. We went to IMG Academy and Alabama together. We both grew together. That’s my brother. I love JC to death.”
By the numbers
Here are some key numbers going into Sunday’s Week 3 meeting against the Chicago Bears (4:25 p.m. ET, Fox) .
3 — With a rushing touchdown against the Bears, Javonte Williams will become the first Cowboys running back with a rushing score in the first three games of a season.
5 — If CeeDee Lamb has his third 100-yard receiving game of the season, it will be his fifth straight game reaching the century mark. Only Michael Irvin would have a longer streak in team history with seven in a row in 1995.
71% — Through two games, Solomon Thomas leads all defensive tackles in run stop win rate, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
78 — Dak Prescott‘s win total if the Cowboys are victorious. He would tie Tony Romo for third in team history. Roger Staubach (85) is No. 2 behind Troy Aikman (94).
No big deal
Not only is Prescott fourth in wins, but he also is second in completions (2,839), third in attempts (4,245), third in yards (31,986) and second in TD passes (215).
But he doesn’t pay attention to any of it.
“I think for the main reason is I’m not anywhere close in my mind to being done,” he said. “If that was on the forefront of my mind, I may look up and say, ‘Dang, what else do I need? Or what do I need to get to?’ But that’s not on my mind by any means. Never really has been. I don’t know if it ever will, to be honest with you.
“I just stay present, stay where I am. Records and all those types of things, they are meant to be broken. I’m just the next man up. As I said, just trying to be the best that I can, and I know if I do that, I’ll have a good chance at all of it.”
