Steelers’ T.J. Watt-Nick Herbig tandem lead NFL in one incredible statistic

Watt and Herbig dominate the NFL in forced fumbles, showcasing the Steelers’ success in drafting elite Badger edge rushers.

The Pittsburgh Steelers know how to draft Badger edge rushers. The Black and Gold’s Wisconsin alumni, OLBs T.J. Watt and Nick Herbig, are currently wrecking opposing offensive lines. An important statistic proves their success: the duo leads the entirety of the NFL in forced fumbles.

Watt and Herbig currently hold the first and second spots for most forced fumbles in the NFL, with five and four forced fumbles respectively. Combined, the edge-rushing tandem leads all other duos at their position with an impressive nine forced fumbles.

One incredible feat for fans to consider is that although Herbig is only one forced fumble away from being tied with Watt for the top spot, he has started seven fewer games than the 2021 D.P.O.Y.

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How will the inevitable return of OLB Alex Highsmith factor into the Wisconsin alumni edge-rushing tandem? Watt’s versatility in Week 13, which saw him line up all over the defense, could allow Highsmith and Herbig to play alongside him, creating an unstoppable Steelers pass rush.

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Saints’ expensive defensive ends overlooked on ESPN positional rankings

The Saints have spent many draft picks and salary cap dollars on their defensive ends, but the entire group was shut out of ESPN’s positional rankings:

ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler has been busy polling dozens of anonymous NFL executives, coaches, and scouts to find the best players at every position group, and on Wednesday he shared their rankings for the league’s best edge rushers. It’s a broad category that lumps traditional defensive ends in with pass-rushing outside linebackers, but the key takeaway for the New Orleans Saints is that they weren’t represented.

That isn’t too surprising given the Saints’ issues pressuring the quarterback last season. Just three teams had fewer sacks than New Orleans (34), who tied with the New York Giants for fourth-worst in the NFL. Their edge rotation just hasn’t been effective enough.

It’s not for lack of trying to improve the group. Cameron Jordan is playing on a contract that carries $28.4 million in guarantees. Carl Granderson has been guaranteed $22.1 million, and Chase Young signed this offseason for a guaranteed $12.5 million. On top of that, the Saints drafted Payton Turner with the 28th overall pick in 2021 and Isaiah Foskey at 40th overall in 2023. They were guaranteed $12.5 million and $6.7 million, respectively. If you’re keeping score, that’s about $82.2 million invested in these five players.

The hope is for Young to heal up from offseason neck surgery in time for the start of the regular season in September; for what it’s worth, he’s progressing well and received positive news at a checkup to start the summer. Last season he tied his career-high with 7.5 sacks and almost doubled his personal-best in quarterback pressures (67, per Pro Football Focus charting). Granderson led the Saints with 8.5 sacks and 57 pressures.

If Foskey can settle in and earn snaps, too (and he should; he didn’t set Notre Dame’s school sacks record by accident) then this group could really get moving. But they haven’t been good enough so far, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that. Turner has been a big disappointment. Jordan is at a point in his career where he can’t deliver as the team’s primary pass rusher, and he shouldn’t be asked to. Granderson has developed well and made big strides year over year. If the plan is for Granderson and Young to lead the charge with Turner and Foskey rotating in on passing downs while Jordan focuses on being a reliable run stopper, it just might work. We’ll see how it shakes out over the summer, and whether any of them earn a spot in the top-10 rankings this time next year.

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Multiple Wisconsin Badgers make PFF’s returning Big Ten edge rusher ranking

Multiple Wisconsin Badgers make PFF’s Big Ten edge-rusher ranking

Wisconsin linebackers/edge-rushers John Pius and Darryl Peterson received top-five rankings in ProFootballFocus’ recent list of the highest-graded returning Big Ten edge rushers.

Pius was No. 2 overall with a PFF grade of 85.1 last season at William & Mary. Peterson, meanwhile, was No. 5 with a grade of 80.7 with the Badgers Ohio State’s Jack Sawyer, Michigan’s Josiah Stewart and Maryland’s Donnell Brown were ranked No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.

Pius was a significant piece of Wisconsin’s 2024 transfer portal class. The 6-foot-4, 244-pound edge departed William & Mary ranked second in program history in career tackles for loss (40.5) and fifth in career sacks (24.5).

The Arlington, Virginia native was also the only FCS player on the Butkus Award Watch List, earned an All-America First Team bid and wound up on the Senior Bowl Watch List. 247Sports had Pius as a four-star transfer recruit and the No. 16 edge rusher in the portal this winter.

Peterson, on the other hand, has suited up for UW from 2021-2023. Over the past two seasons, the Akron, Ohio product logged 13 starts in 26 overall appearances at OLB.

 

The 2023 Academic All-Big Ten team member led the Badgers with 4.5 sacks and posted a career-best 47 tackles for UW as a redshirt junior.

Wisconsin’s defensive unit enters 2024 with a preseason SP+ Rating of 13.8, the seventh-highest in the nation. With four new squads slated to join the conference this fall, UW’s defensive front will need to perform at a high clip.

Wisconsin secures official visit with three-star class of 2025 edge rusher

Wisconsin secures official visit for three-star class of 2025 edge rusher

Wisconsin top class of 2025 target edge Nicolas Clayton will officially visit the Badgers from June 7-9.

Per 247Sports’ composite rankings, Clayton is the nation’s No. 65 edge rusher in the class of 2025, No. 118 recruit from Florida and No. 868 overall player in the class. The Gainesville, Florida native is a rising senior and represents F. W. Buchholz High School.

The 6’5,” 205-pound edge also competes in track and field. As a sophomore, Clayton posted ed a 40-2 effort in the triple jump and a 18-9.25 effort in the long jump, per 247Sports.

Wisconsin extended an offer to the three-star recruit in April 2024. In total, Clayton has received 26 offers. The most notable include from USC, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Nebraska, UCF and Wisconsin.

Clayton has also official visits scheduled with USF, Duke, Illinois and Wisconsin for June.

247Sports has yet to release a crystal ball prediction for where Clayton will land. On3’s recruiting prediction machine has UCF with the highest odds to land the popular edge rusher.

Wisconsin’s class of 2025 currently ranks No. 16 in the nation with 11 players committed. Despite Clayton’s popularity, the official visit is certainly a positive sign for a program looking to bolster its front line.

Raiders DE Maxx Crosby leading NFL EDGE in several key statistics

Maxx Crosby leads NFL EDGE players in several key statistics

We know Maxx Crosby is easily the best defender on the Raiders roster. That goes without saying. Every now and then, it helps to see how he stacks up against other players at his position across the NFL. And in those instances you are reminded that he isn’t just the best defender on this team, but arguably the best all-around edge rusher in the league.

How do I come to this conclusion? Well, just look at the stats.

Among edge rushers with at least three sacks this season, here are some of Crosby’s stats and where he ranks.

38 pressures (1st)
30 hurries (1st)
22 solo tackles (1st)
35 combined tackles (1st)
17 solo run stops (1st)
29 combined run stops (1st)
8 tackles for loss (3rd)
5.5 sacks (7th)

His sack total is only 2.5 behind Danielle Hunter and TJ Watt for the league lead (eight). Which means basically he could potentially jump up from 7th to 1st in one game. He’s had one multiple sack game this season and has only once this season been held without a sack.

Two weeks ago he was named Offensive Player of the week when he had four tackles for loss and a sack against the Packers.

Packers edge rusher room with a run defense mindset

Improvement for the Green Bay Packers’ defense as a whole probably begins with being better against the run in 2023. In order to accomplish that, it’s not only the interior defenders who have to improve but all 11 defenders on the field have to be …

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Improvement for the Green Bay Packers’ defense as a whole probably begins with being better against the run in 2023. In order to accomplish that, it’s not only the interior defenders who have to improve but all 11 defenders on the field have to be better, including the edge rushers.

At this time of the year, with OTAs taking place, it’s always important to note that the pads are not on yet. However, during Tuesday’s practice that was open to the media, the edge rusher position group held up well against the run. There were several instances where the ball carrier either had to bounce back inside because there was nowhere to go as they tried to stretch the field, or they ended up running out of bounds for a minimal gain, unable to get around the corner.

A primary role of the edge rushers on running downs is to set the edge, which if done correctly as described above, makes bouncing outside, or getting around the corner a difficult task for the running back, and funnels them back toward the middle of the field. Although the edge rusher group that the Packers have is very good at getting after the quarterback, this is one aspect where the unit can improve.

Things can go poorly when an edge rusher is either unable to get off blocks or by being overly aggressive and treating the running play like a pass-rush opportunity. This can lead to them abandoning their responsibility on the edge and crashing down toward the quarterback and ball carrier, creating all sorts of space along the boundary for the running back.

Run game coordinator Jerry Montgomery said a few weeks ago that being better against the run will take all 11 defenders to do so and that being a good run defense team beings with “mindset.” Following Tuesday’s practice, I asked Preston Smith what that mindset means to him and the edge rusher room.

“You have got to play violent from start to finish, especially in the run game,” said Smith. “We preach in our room violent get off and violent hands, and that has to roll over to the run game. So when you’re getting off the ball, you have to get off violently, and when you engage the offensive lineman, you have to do it violently, and you have to get off blocks violently to make tackles and make sure that we make good tackles behind the line of scrimmage and that we make plays that help the defense put us in great situations like second and long or third and long.”

Depending on whether or not Rashan Gary is available for Week 1, there may be none or one roster spots available, assuming the Packers keep five edge rushers. Including Gary, the roster locks include Smith, JJ Enagbare, and Lukas Van Ness. Although from a contract standpoint, getting out of Justin Hollins’ deal would be easy for the Packers if they were to release him, with how he is being utilized during OTAs, seeing ample playing time with both the ones and twos, it’s hard to envision him not being on the team this season.

That right there is already five players. But if Gary begins the season on the PUP list still recovering from an ACL injury, it does open the door for undrafted rookie Brenton Cox, who Matt LaFleur specifically named on Tuesday as one of the young players who has impressed over the last few weeks.

During his time with the Packers, Hollins held up well against the run, ranking 27th in PFF’s run-stop rate metric. Run defense, compared to rushing the quarterback, can come with a more difficult learning curve for young players with the nuance and technique that goes into playing that role effectively. So now in his second season, Enagbare taking a leap forward will go a long way in helping this edge rusher unit against the run. When it comes to Van Ness, at least early on, I suspect that he will be primarily used as a pass rusher.

It’s not a coincidence that during the last few games of the season, when the Packers happened to be playing their best football, they went from allowing 5.0 yards per rush to just 4.4, which over the course of the season would have ranked 15th, a far cry from the 28th spot where they finished. When the defense is able to limit the run game on early downs, every member of the defense benefits.

It puts the offense in second and third and long situations, making them more predictable, and allows the defensive front to pin their ears back and really get after the quarterback. If the defensive front is able to slow the run, it also provides Joe Barry with the flexibility to play with more defenders in the secondary to limit the passing game, which is something else that we saw from this Packers defense late last season as well.

“We got to be better, across the board, point blank,” said Jerry Montgomery about the run defense. “I’ve got to be better and get my guys to play to that standard, but it takes 11. We got to be physical at the point of attack, build a wall, stay square, but we do, second level and third level have to do the same. So we have to put it all together, and we plan on doing that.”

Raiders top pick Tyree Wilson wants other NFL edge rushers to emulate his game

Tyree Wilson wants to be “different” than other NFL edge rushers and have them “taking bits and pieces” from his game

At one point in Dave Ziegler’s press conference following round one, he was asked about what kind of impression he got from Tyree Wilson upon meeting him. The first word he used? “Humble.”

Increasingly that’s not a word I would necessarily use to describe him.

Not that there’s anything wrong with confidence, but Wilson seems to have plenty of it.

The day after his drafting, Wilson stood at the podium at Raiders headquarters in Henderson. Once again, sporting a blazer with open shirt to show off his icy chains, just as he had on draft night.

Just after he was selected by the Raiders at seven overall, he spoke of having a lot of areas of his game that need work. And Ziegler reiterated those areas in his press conference.

The primary criticisms seem to be that Wilson relies a lot on his tremendous physical gifts and, as Ziegler put it, he lacks “savvy” in his game.

The best technicians in the NFL take parts of other players’ games and implement them into theirs. He and Maxx Crosby already have a lot of similarities. Mostly their large wingspans and worth ethic.

My question posed for Wilson was if he studied any NFL pass rushers of whom he’d like to take parts of their game and implement them into his. His answer was pretty interesting.

“I want to be different than other pass rushers in the NFL,” Wilson replied. “I want to have my own ideal pass rush playing, and for other people to take bits and pieces from my game.”

That’s a pretty good goal to have, generally speaking. Surely it’s a goal many players have. They ultimately want to be the one others study to improve their game. Though, Wilson may be a ways away from that status.

For now, it may be smart for the rookie to focus on his weak areas and study those NFL players who excel in those areas. Because relying on his physical traits along at the next level is not an option.

Not to say that’s what he’s planning to do. He has indicated that he knows he has a lot of work ahead of him to make the transition from college to pros.

Being a student of the game and those who have dominated it before him would certainly help him in those efforts.

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3 edge rushers to watch for Chiefs at 2023 NFL Scouting Combine

Here are three edge rushers the #Chiefs should be keeping an eye on when on-field drills and testing kicks off on Thursday.

The 2023 NFL Scouting Combine is well underway, but prospects will take the field for the first time on Thursday for on-field drills and workouts. You can watch the edge rushers, interior defensive linemen and linebackers workout from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET on NFL Network.

The Kansas City Chiefs added a number of young contributors to the team via the draft just a season ago. Several of those players posted impressive performances at the combine. The team will look to follow up its standout 2022 draft class by adding even more instant-impact players in 2023.

Keep an eye on the following three edge rushers working out on Thursday. A head-turning performance could put any number of the players squarely on the radar for Brett Veach and company.

College Football Transfer Portal 2023 Rankings: 15 Best Defensive Ends, Edge Rushers

College Football Transfer Portal 2023: Ranking the 15 best defensive ends and edge rushers switching teams

Who are the best and brightest defensive ends and edge rushers in the 2023 college football transfer portal? Where will they be playing this season?


Transfer Portal 2023 Rankings: Defensive Ends and Edge Rushers

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They’re the dangerous disruptive forces who can change games, and some schools – like Oklahoma – are about to get an instant jolt. The defensive ends and edge rushers are terrific, with a slew of players who might not be household names about to become stars on a national scale. There might not be a home run like former Albany star Jared Verse was for Florida State, but …

Based on a combination of the best players and who’ll make the biggest splashes, here’s our ranking of the top defensive ends and edge rushers in the 2023 college football transfer portal and where they all decided to go.

They’re the 15 defensive ends and edge rushers in the transfer portal you need to know.

2023 Transfer Portal Rankings
QB | RB | WR | TE | OT | OG/C
DE/EDGE | DT | LB | CB | Saf | Coaches

15 Chris Collins

New School: Minnesota
Former School: North Carolina

14 Zach Durfee

New School: Washington
Former School: Sioux Falls

13 Trace Ford

New School: Oklahoma
Former School: Oklahoma State

12 John Morgan

New School: Arkansas
Former School: Pitt

11 Jeff Pietrowski

New School: Wisconsin
Former School: Michigan State

10 Gilber Edmond

New School: Florida State
Former School: South Carolina

9 Anthony Goodlow

New School: Oklahoma State
Former School: Tulsa

8 Darian Varner

New School: Wisconsin
Former School: Temple

7 Andre Carter

New School: Indiana
Former School: Western Michigan

6 Donnell Brown

New School: Maryland
Former School: Saint Francis

5 Jordan Domineck

New School: Colorado
Former School: Arkansas

4 Jake Heimlicher

New School: UCLA
Former School: Penn

3 Jordan Burch

New School: Oregon
Former School: South Carolina

2 Josaiah Stewart

New School: Michigan
Former School: Coastal Carolina

1 Dasan McCullough

New School: Oklahoma
Former School: Indiana

2023 Transfer Portal Rankings
QB | RB | WR | TE | OT | OG/C
DE/EDGE | DT | LB | CB | Saf | Coaches

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2023 NFL Draft Underclassmen. Early Entrants
QBs | RBs | WRs | TEs | OTs | OG/Cs
Edge | DEs/DTs | LBs | CBs | Safeties
Top 100 2023 NFL Draft Early Entrants
2023 NFL Draft Early Entrants By College

Auburn defensive end Derick Hall leads college football in edge rushing stat

The NFL prospect has certainly been showing his worth.

[autotag]Derick Hall[/autotag] is an NFL draft prospect for 2023. So far this season, he’s certainly been playing like it.

According to PFF college, Hall currently leads the NCAA in quarterback pressures with 14. That’s one more than Washington’s Bralen Trice and UCLA’s Grayson Murphy, who both clock in with 13 pressures each.

Hall has racked up 10 total tackles and converted one of those pressures into a sack two games into 2022 against the FCS’ Mercer Bears and the Sun Belt’s San Jose Spartans. He’ll get a true test of his pass-rushing prowess this Saturday, though, when he faces off against Penn State’s offensive line in an attempt to go after Nittany Lions quarterback Sean Clifford.

Last year, Hall netted nine sacks and 52 total tackles with two forced fumbles. He’ll look to improve on those numbers for 2022, especially since multiple NFL teams will be paying attention as the year progresses and he has steadily improved his statistics throughout his tenure as a Tiger.

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