Clowney Should See the Field

The Jets have seen their passing game grind to a halt in the past two weeks. Denver and San Francisco utilized aggressive press coverage on New York's wideouts and shut Laveranues Coles and Jerricho Cotchery down. When the Jets throw deep, none of their receivers can beat the man covering them. This means one thing. The Jets need to activate David Clowney.

Clowney is in his second year out of Virginia Tech. He has never participated in an NFL regular season game. However, he could add an extra dimension to New York's offense. He has 4.37 speed in the 40 yard dash. He starred in the preseason, catching a pair of long touchdown passes against Cleveland. David injured his shoulder or his collarbone depending on conflicting accounts and was not available in the season's first month. Since then, he has not been active.

Fans can go overboard based on preseason results, but Clowney showed on those two plays that he can be a deep threat. His snaps should be limited. At best, he is still a work in progress. However, his biggest asset could add an extra dimension to the offense, even if he plays sparingly and is only put in to run the deep route. His speed could force safeties to account for him, opening more room underneath. At the very least, the opposing defense would have to account for his presence and keep his speed in the back of its mind.

Clowney cannot fix the pass rush. He cannot help the secondary or linebackers cover the crossing routes better. He will not even provide a cure all for the passing game. Activating him, however, would make the Jets a better team by providing a deep threat who can gain separation, which the team does not currently possess.