8. Calais Campbell, Baltimore Ravens
Another veteran playing at an extremely high level deep into his career is Calais Campbell. 2019 was his 12th year in the NFL, but he played some of his best football in what would be his final season with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Campbell notched 71 quarterback pressures and 46 quarterback hurries, some of his best numbers to date, to go with his 41 total tackles. While his sack numbers dropped out of the double-digits for the first and only time during his stop in Jacksonville, those pressure numbers are nothing to scoff at.
If you want to get a sense of what he brings to Baltimore as a pass rusher, watch his Week 3 game against the Tennessee Titans. He was in the Titans’ backfield almost all night, racking up 10 pressures, a season-high three sacks, and five quarterback hurries. If you want a textbook example of upfield quickness from a defensive tackle, watch this play:
This is supposed to be a tunnel screen. Quarterbacks should not get sacked on tunnel screens. But Campbell gets upfield in the blink of an eye with a quick rip move, and stops this play before Marcus Mariota has a chance.
But if you want to see what probably brought him to Baltimore, the final play of the first quarter that night is probably the reason:
Remember. Derrick Henry put almost two hundred on the Ravens in the Division Round. Here, Campbell gets the running back for a loss of five yards on this outside zone play, slicing into the A Gap and beating the reach block attempt of the center. If Campbell can help the Ravens with both pass rush and run defense, watch out.