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Cameron Jordan has seen it all. After 12 years and 203 games in the NFL (including 11 playoff matchups), he’s got an idea of which quarterbacks are more challenging than others. And as he explained it to his young peers, some players present different challenges than others.
“Like everybody knows, a fast, wrong decision can be a right decision. A fast, right decision can be a winner. A slow, right decision gets your ass on the bench, because there’s gonna be somebody out here moving at a different speed. And slow, right decisions, we love them: call them ‘Kirk Cousins,'” Jordan said, in a video shared widely on social media from Von Miller’s annual summer pass-rush summit.
But Jordan kept the analogy going. While Cousins may be a league-average passer (he averaged 2.7 seconds to throw last year, tied with Mac Jones and Jared Goff), he’s also someone who hangs back in the pocket and isn’t much of a threat to hurt defenses with his legs. He’s only run for more than 150 yards in two seasons during his 11-year career, in 2017 and 2020. Jordan’s defense has sacked Cousins 16 times in 6 games, including the postseason, intercepting him twice and forcing him to fumble three times.
“I can whoop whoever’s at Tampa Bay 25 times, but you’ve got Tom Brady there throwing it (in) 2.2 (seconds), you barely get there,” Jordan shrugged. “You can beat the hell out of whatever offensive tackle that’s over at the Ravens, you got Lamar Jack handling business. Missed him twice. He ducked under, I hit the turf, I’m like ‘I played myself.’ Get up and chase him like I’m gonna get there, you’re not.”
That’s an important lesson for young pass rushers to learn, and the stats bare it out. Brady averaged just 2.3 seconds per pass attempt last year. Jackson was on the other end of the spectrum at 3.1, with Cousins in the middle at 2.7. While Brady was known for staying in the pocket just like Cousins, his faster processing speed and decision-making allowed him to neutralize pass rushers like Jordan. With Jackson, the inverse was true — he’s athletic enough to bail out of the pocket and dodge a rusher to keep the play alive and buy time for his receivers to get open.
Jordan’s point was that he and other defensive linemen need to be on top of their techniques and know their opponents. Studying game tape of offensive linemen is important, but from his perspective the real challenge comes in bringing down their quarterbacks after beating the blocker. If they can’t quickly disengage at the line of scrimmage and get into the backfield, nothing else matters. Hopefully it’s a lesson that his young teammates like Payton Turner and Isaiah Foskey are taking to heart.
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