Clowney, meanwhile, will head back to free agency after the draft, a place he’s known quite well. He’s become a mercenary of late, playing for five different clubs over the last six years. Since 2020, Clowney has signed contracts with teams in April or later four times. The only outlier: His two-year deal with Carolina, which Clowney signed two weeks after the Panthers traded Brian Burns to the Giants in March 2024.
At 32, Clowney can follow the familiar path while choosing his next destination. He ranked in the top 50 edge rushers in the NFL last season, per Pro Football Focus, and tallied 5.5 sacks in 14 games with the Panthers, a total that fell shy of his 9.5 sacks logged in 2023.
Though the homecoming for the former South Carolina standout ended abruptly, Clowney should still attract some interest on the open market among contenders (i.e., the Detroit Lions, who could use another edge rusher at an affordable rate). We’ll see where his football odyssey takes Clowney next.
In an unrelated move, the Panthers also placed running back Jonathon Brooks on the physically unable to perform list, ruling him out for the 2025 season after he suffered an ACL tear in Week 14 of the 2024 campaign. It was his second ACL tear in as many years. He’ll have all of 2025 to heal and rehabilitate the injury before returning to action in 2026.