The Raiders have been trying in vain to find consistent pass-rush help since they traded Khalil Mack before the 2018 season, with iffy results. Last year, the team had just 21 sacks and 147 pressures, and that didn’t help a questionable secondary. With the switch in defensive coordinator from Paul Guenther to Gus Bradley, the Raiders are going to try and jump-start that edge pressure with the addition of Yannick Ngakoue, who agreed to terms on a two-year, $26 million deal. Ngakoue reunites with Bradley, who was Jacksonville’s head coach in 2016 when the Jaguars selected Ngakoue in the third round of the draft out of Maryland.
Ngakoue has played for three different teams in three different systems since the start of the 2019 season — the Jaguars in 2019, the Vikings for six weeks in 2020 after Jacksonville traded him there, and the Ravens to finish out the 2020 season after another trade. Wherever he lined up, Ngakoue proved able to disrupt quarterbacks. He’s had 95 total pressures in the last two seasons on 964 pass-rushing snaps, though he was used in a more limited role than expected in Baltimore.
“We had a unique situation here with all the outside ‘backers we had,” Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said in January of Ngakoue’s possible future with the team. “So, going forward, if he chooses, and we work it out and he’s here, it’ll be a little different, because he’ll be here from the beginning, and he’ll be starting, and he’ll get a lot more snaps than he got this year.”
The tape certainly showed that Ngakoue still has a lot to offer as an edge-rusher — he zapped his old Jacksonville team for two sacks with the Ravens in Week 15, and here with the Vikings, he went through Seahawks tight end Greg Olsen and left tackle Duane Brown to take Russell Wilson down on a third-and-24 play.
Ngakoue has always been a great effort player when it comes to pressure, and he’ll bring that to a Raiders team in desperate need of it.