Jadeveon Clowney starting to become domi

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SANTA CLARA, Calif.  The visiting locker room at Levi's Stadium Monday night was littered with orange peels and jock straps on the floor as Key Glock's "Ru sian Cream" blared from the portable boombox. And yet, there was an air of refreshment there with the victors, who were all able to be honest about how the talk of the week impacted them.The topped the previously undefeated , 27-24, in overtime on Monday Night Football, delivering the best game of this season so far and throwing the top of everyone's power rankings out of wack. The Seahawks knew the deal coming into  Brandon Ingram Jersey the game: they were six-point dogs to an NFC West rival they had dominated for the better part of this decade.Yet they had embraced it. There was no talk of turning off televisions at the team facility. No mention of only caring about what those in team colors had to say. The players had internalized the criticism of a then- 7-2 team with a perfect road record and burned that fuel all the way to their second overtime victory in consecutive weeks.And perhaps no one on this Seahawks team did that more than . The former No. 1 overall pick had been traded for a third-round pick and a couple throwaway players after he and the reached a contract impa se this offseason, and through his first half-season in Seattle he wasn't turning in the sort of numbers everyone expected of him.   Against a 49ers team that finally had its two starting tackles back, the Seahawks tallied five sacks and registered 10 hits on . No one had a bigger day than Clowney, who accounted for one of those sacks and  Rawle Alkins Jersey five hits to go along with a forced fumble and a fumble recovery that went for a touchdown."Up front we've been getting hammered all season long about 'this front's not playing well' and we needed to do something different tonight and we came and made a step in the right direction," Clowney said. "Hope we can keep growing from this upfront with the whole defense and keep building."More guys than not in this league pay attention to the noise. (In fact, usually it's the guys who make a point to say they don't pay attention that do the most snooping.) There are burner Twitter accounts to follow beat reporters. Pa s by a given player in a losing locker room and you may see them scrolling their mentions or searching their name on that hellsite. The point is that they, by the nature of the human condition, all know what's being said because they have to.  So when a PR staffer told Clowney after his shower that ESPN's "Monday Night Football'' crew wanted him on set after the game, he couldn't help but offer a half-sarcastic before joining the group.Clowney's pedestrian start to this season could be chalked up to a new team and new scheme, or simply the football reps he mi sed during his training camp holdout. Either way, he racked up more stats Monday night against the Niners than he did in his first seven weeks with the Seahawks combined. And he did it by staying vertical in his rush lanes and not being fooled by San Francisco's outside zone that so regularly has defensive linemen moving sideways. He pushed and Mike McGlinchy downhill all night and through overtime for 72 snaps, the most of all defensive linemen on the field and third-most snaps he' Jahlil Okafor Jersey s ever played in his 75-game career."Maybe at the beginning of the season people were saying stuff with the sack numbers," fellow defensive end told me, "but if you watch the film, you see him winning a lot. You see him getting pre sures. It was only a matter of time. This is just the beginning."  Then there are plays that don't show up on the stat sheet, like Clowney forcing speedy out of bounds on a jet-sweep pop-pa s from Garoppolo. Or, on a fourth-quarter second-and-short, Clowney easily beat McGlinchy, got into the backfield and put his hands up in the throwing lane. Garoppolo couldn't throw in that moment, and that gave time to sack the quarterback from the other side."Jadeveon Clowney was fantastic tonight Will Magnay Jersey . When he was close he was causing problems," Seattle coach Pete Carroll said."It was as breakout game. I just thought he was so impre sive all night long. I thought they were tackling him and he was just penetrating so fast and furiously. Yeah, we would have liked to see it a little earlier (in the season) but if this is where we (get) going now and kick into high gear"  The Seahawks need for Clowney was obvious. Even with him, Seattle had a defense ranked in the bottom third of the league. Before he got there, the Seahawks were still trying to plug the holes left by two seasons ago and this past year.Understanding Seattle's desperation and the impo sibility of a contract extension with Clowney, Houston seemed to have more leverage than it used when it traded Clowney for the third-round pick (not to mention paying nearly half his 2019 salary to boot). It speaks to how fractured the relationship became between player and team  an eventuality we all saw coming as soon as the league year started in the spring  and the perils of having a group of four men operating as general manager rather than having one person in that post.For the cost of what will be a pick between No. 85 to 95 or so of April's draft and two players who have combined for three tackles in 18 games this year, the Seahawks have gotten nine quarterback hits, two sacks, two  Julius Randle Jersey forced fumbles and a defensive score from Clowney in the past three weeks.  On top of all the knocks on himself and this Seattle defensive line this season, throw on the buildup to the game involving the 49ers healthy offensive line and their dominating, no-need-to-blitz defensive front. Clowney admits he heard it all and used it for inspiration in his breakout performance."For sure. It's a competition. If you ain't competing you need to retire. Point blank period," he said. "I think it's all about competing. At the end of the day I don't want to be outperformed any week, so in my head I always make it a competition."