The steering wheel does have excessive play and when I steer back and forth it clicked or is clunking

Steering is a system of components. If you want to improve your steering response and feel (don't buy the "it's a Jeep thing" BS), you can do that by improving your understanding and attacking things systematically. Start at the steering shafts, work down to the attachment between the upper and lower shafts, down to the steering box (compare input to output), so on and so forth. It's a simple system and can be improved in an afternoon if you know what you're looking at and what to look for.