Jadeveon Clowney is headed back to the familiar territory of late-spring free agency.
The Carolina Panthers announced on Thursday they have released the 32-year-old edge rusher.
Clowney's release will save the Panthers $7.775 million in cap space in 2025, per Over The Cap, and arrives after Carolina spent Day 2 picks on edge rushers Nic Scourton (Texas A&M) and Princely Umanmielen (Ole Miss) in April's draft.
With the selection of Scourton in Round 2, Carolina replaced Clowney with a younger player with high upside, giving them the freedom to move on from the former No. 1 overall pick of the 2014 draft. The 6-foot-3, 257-pound Scourton should replace Clowney in the lineup immediately and embark on his NFL journey with opportunity to prove himself from the start of his career with the Panthers.
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, his second ACL tear in as many seasons. He'll have all of 2025 to heal and rehabilitate the injury before returning to action in 2026.
