Indianapolis Colts’ defensive end Kwity Paye put together a strong Week 1 performance as a pass rusher.
Among all defensive ends in each team’s season opener, Paye ranked 10th in ESPN’s pass rush win rate metric, which measures how often a pass rusher is able to beat his blocker within 2.5 seconds.
For Paye, he was able to win four times out of his 13 pass rush snaps for a win rate of 31 percent. Paye did this while being double-teamed on 20 percent of his snaps as well.
At the top of the list was Denver’s Jonathan Cooper who won five of his 10 pass rush attempts. Just ahead of Paye in these rankings are Maxx Crosby, Andrew Van Ginkle, and Jared Verse with win rates of 33 percent.
From a production standpoint, PFF credited Paye with three pressures, including a quarterback hit, and one sack.
While as a pass rusher, Paye was able to tally 8.5 sacks in 2023, he also finished the year with just 28 total pressures. From a sustainability standpoint in regards to his sack production, duplicating that level of productivity would likely require more consistent opportunities. Or in short, creating more steady pressures.
Paye’s performance in this first game is a great sign that he’s on that track. Regardless of the position, with consistency comes production.
Paye is coming off of what he called a “great” offseason, working out four or five times a day, which resulted in him losing 15 pounds while gaining muscle.
“That’s where you prepare for the season,” said Paye prior to training camp. “So for me, I was doing like four or five workouts a day. I was doing extra cardio in the morning. I was doing the lift and the line work, then Pilates and hot yoga and PT and just making sure I stay on top of it. Making sure I’m ready to go. I lost 15 pounds, and I gained some muscle.”
Now the next step, and this is the case for any player, is to build off of the strong foundation that Paye has built to start the season, so what we saw from him as a pass rusher in Week 1 ends up becoming the norm.