90. Calais Campbell, DI, 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.
89. Zach Ertz, TE, Philadelphia Eagles
I made an appeal to authority for breaking the tie between Zach Ertz and Mark Andrews. Perhaps the premier authority of them all.
Bill Belichick.
No, no, no. It’s not like I managed to get the greatest coach of all time on the phone to ask him which tight end he considered more dangerous. Although, you would think he’d be willing to answer a call from a fellow Wesleyan University football player. No, this answer is based on the film.
Last season, the New England Patriots faced both the Baltimore Ravens and the Philadelphia Eagles. Rewatching those two games this week I was reminded of an interesting schematic twist that Belichick put in place during that Eagles game.
Starting early in the contest on some critical third downs, and then increasing in volume over the course of the game, Ertz saw perhaps an unexpected face across from him in man coverage.
Stephon Gilmore, one of the NFL’s best cornerbacks and the Defensive Player of the Year a season ago.
When you see how Ertz puts defenders in a blender, like he does to Jeff Heath on this snap, you’ll see why Belichick wanted to put Gilmore on the TE:
Ertz is a great route-runner for the position, and like many other players on this list he can also use his frame and wingspan to create matchup problems. Forcing Belichick – and perhaps other defensive coaches in the future – to go to interesting lengths to try and slow him down. That kind of respect shows you just how valuable, and dangerous, Ertz is as a weapon.
88. Dalvin Cook, RB, Minnesota Vikings
In April, Cook promoted himself as the best running back in the NFL as he and the Vikings started talking about a contract extension. 2020 is the last year of Cook’s rookie deal, and the Florida State alum wants to be paid in the same range as the best in the business.
“The things I do coming out of the backfield, the things I do in between the tackles, I block, I pretty much do it all,” Cook said via Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “I don’t have to come off the field. I think some guys just don’t do as much as I do, and I think that’s why I’m today’s [top] back.”
Before the 2019 season opener, Deion Jones said something about Dalvin Cook that Dalvin Cook didn't appreciate.
This was Dalvin Cook's response. pic.twitter.com/xqu6VahE6c
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 26, 2020
Cook has never played a full 16-game season, and he had to work through shoulder issues in 2019. He also wore down as the season went along, averaging 5.3 yards per carry in the first eight games of the regular season, and 3.3 in the final eight. Cook’s postseason was an encapsulation thereof — he looked great in Minnesota’s wild-card win over the Saints, and was completely flummoxed by the 49ers’ excellent defense in the divisional round.
“It’s all a risk when you give any guy a contract in the league,” Cook concluded in April. “He could get hurt the next day in practice. So, it’s all a risk. But what if the guy doesn’t get hurt and he goes out there and helps contribute to the Super Bowl and he goes out there and balls out? … It’s all about what the person believes in, what the owners believe in, the GM believes in, and I firmly think the Vikings believe in me.”
Cook is right in that he possesses every attribute one would prefer in a franchise-level running back, but when asking for the kind of money he wants, the durability issue has to weigh on the minds of the Vikings’ decision-makers.
87. Brian Poole, Slot CB, New York Jets
The Falcons picked Poole up as an undrafted free agent out of Florida in 2016, and started him on a positive development curve as a slot defender. Poole was error-prone at times in that position, and would give up more touchdowns and big plays than was ideal, but after he signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal to replace Buster Skrine, things started to turn around. Last season, Poole allowed 32 catches on 51 targets for 237 yards, 131 yards after the catch, one touchdown, one interception, and an opponent passer rating of 72.1 — the lowest opponent passer rating allowed by any slot cornerback who played more than 50% of his snaps inside. Now, he has another one-year deal, with the money going up to $5 million.
Poole has maintained his aggressiveness, but has also refined his mechanics to allow him to trail receivers through different routes. As he’s been able to combine backpedal speed with an elevated route sense and a fluid hip-flip (as well as defined footwork), Poole is now a top-level slot asset.
86. Saquon Barkley, RB, New York Giants
Barkley’s 2019 season was mostly a disappointment after he led the NFL with 2,028 yards from scrimmage in his rookie campaign. A high ankle sprain diminished his effectiveness for much of his second season, and the nadir of that was his 13-carry, one-yard performance against the Jets in Week 10 where he couldn’t bounce outside, he was missing three starters on the offensive line, and his own pass protection was uncharacteristically awful.
Jamal Adams just stole Daniel Jones' lunch money pic.twitter.com/OSkA4jx76y
— NFL Retweet (@NFLRT) November 10, 2019
Barkley started to put it back together near the end of the season, averaging 108.4 yards per game in December after a November in which he tallied just 29.3 yards per contest. The hope in 2020 is that a healthy Barkley will align with fourth-overall pick Andrew Thomas on an improved front five, new offensive coordinator Jason Garrett will add continuity to the run game (no sure thing there), and Barkley will return to form. At his peak, he’s one of the quickest and most elusive backs in the game, and his receiving ability forces defenses to do… well, more than whatever the Washington Football Team was doing on this 33-yard touchdown pass from Daniel Jones.
how to stop a flood with a thimble, by the 2019 washington football something-or-others pic.twitter.com/mpJFJJIOcG
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 26, 2020
Barkley isn’t as quite as transcendent as one might have assumed in his rookie season, but he’s better than what he showed in the middle of the 2019 season when it seemed that everything possible was aligned against him. His third season will say a lot about his future potential.
85. Darius Leonard, LB, Indianapolis Colts
It was viewed as something of a reach when the Indianapolis Colts drafted Darius Leonard out of South Carolina State in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft. But there is a reason Colts’ general manager Chris Ballard is widely regarded at one of the best in the business, and the Leonard pick is great evidence why. Leonard has been an elite-level player during his two seasons in the league, and last year was no exception. He was great in coverage, allowing 59 receptions on 74 targets for 559 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but grabbing five interceptions along the way, a career-high. Watch what he does here on this pick six of Jameis Winston:
One of my favorite Darius Leonard plays from 2019. 82 yard pick six by @dsleon45 #TheManiac pic.twitter.com/pn06ib9Jbk
— Cody Felger (@CPFelger55) March 30, 2020
He begins the play down in the box, showing pressure. But after engaging the center to mess with the protection scheme he drops off the line of scrimmage and gets underneath the slant route, reading this play perfectly. He finishes it off by returning it 82 yards for the score. This is veteran awareness from the young LB.
Leonard is also solid against the run, and in 2019 he notched 79 tackles – along with 36 “stops” – and just six missed tackles. He possesses a great combination of strength and short-area quickness, that allows him to evade and/or stack-and-shed against the run. Watch him on this play against the Miami Dolphins as he picks his way through traffic and stops this run before it gets going:
Entering just his third season in the league, there is no reason Leonard will not continue to show up on lists like this in the years to come.
84. Joe Thuney, OG, New England Patriots
Thuney might be the least physically imposing player on this list at his position. The third-round pick out of North Carolina State in 2016 doesn’t really pop off the tape in any particular category. At 6-foot-5 and 308 pounds, he doesn’t impose his physical will on defenders as other guards do. What Thuney has become, however, is the best possible distillation of the value of great technique. You just don’t see him out of position, and though he’s not some kind of leverage monster, he’s able to use that technique to get the job done in ways many far more physically gifted guards can’t.
The stats prove the story. Thuney allowed just one sack, four quarterback hits, and 12 quarterback hurries in 732 pass-blocking snaps last season after allowing no sacks, five quarterback hits, and 21 quarterback hurries in 765 snaps the year before. That kind of protection with that frequency of contact has made Thuney one of the most valuable offensive linemen in the league, regardless of position. And it’s especially impressive when you consider that Tom Brady got battered around quite a bit in 2019 as he waited for his receivers to gain separation — a process that generally yielded negative results. It will be fascinating to see how Thuney and the rest of the Patriots’ line adapts to Cam Newton in 2020. One thing’s for sure — New England doesn’t want that to happen without Thuney involved, which is why the team placed the franchise tag on him.
83. Kirk Cousins, QB, Minnesota Vikings
As a writer I’ve crafted my share of “mea culpa” articles, and one of the most recent was a piece about the Minnesota Vikings passer. Kirk Cousins is viewed with skepticism in most of the NFL world, and I was among that group a season ago when I asked the question of him: “Baker or Chef?”
But then last season happened, and when viewed in the context of Cousins’ time in Minnesota, it was time for me to revisit him as a quarterback. Statistically, Cousins has been one of the better passers in the league over the past two years, and his ANY/A of 8.15 was seventh-best in the NFL. he also saw an increase of 5% from his expected Completion Percentage to his actual Completion Percentage, third-best in the league.
Play-action passing is where Cousins is at his best, and playing for Kevin Stefanski he found many such opportunities. Out of his 481 total dropbacks last season, 151 of those were on play-action plays. That accounted for a 31.4% mark, fifth-highest in the league. On those designs, Cousins led the way with a 129.2 NFL passer rating on play-action, tops in the NFL. He also posted averaged 9.7 Yards per Attempt on play-action, and threw for 14 touchdowns, tying Lamar Jackson for the league high.
But he also impressed when pressured. Cousins had an Adjusted Completion Percentage of 73.0% when under pressured, behind only Drew Brees and Derek Carr.
Stefanski is now in Cleveland, where he hopes to bring some of that to the Browns and Baker Mayfield. But stepping into his shoes is the veteran offensive mind Gary Kubiak, whose system is very similar conceptually to what Stefanski was calling for Cousins a season ago. Given this, you can expect a similar level of play from the veteran passer in 2020.
82. DeForest Buckner, DI, Indianapolis Colts
Continuing our run of players moving teams, DeForest Buckner has a new home after being traded to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for a first-round pick. After what some considered to be a down rookie season, calling into question the wisdom of drafting him seventh-overall, Buckner rounded into form his second year in the league. Last season, his fourth in the NFL, was another great year of play from him, as he showed the ability to both get after the passer and help against the run.
Buckner was a big part of the San Francisco 49ers’ defense and their run to the Super Bowl. He was a force as a pass rusher, stringing together 66 total quarterback pressures and 46 quarterback hurries, both career-high numbers. His sack totals were down from 2018, but it was his second-straight year of double-digit sacks with 11. Better still is his versatility. He saw the bulk of his snaps in the interior, with 305 at left defensive tackle and another 392 at right defensive tackle, but he also saw 46 at left defensive end and 159 at right defensive end. That allowed Robert Saleh to play with his matchups up front, and put opposing passers in some precarious situations.
Buckner notched a pair of sacks in the season’s final game, getting to Patrick Mahomes twice. It was his only multiple-sack game of the year, and if you want a glossary-style example of a swim move, watch what he does to the left guard on this play:
Even more impressive than the pass rushing move itself – which is what the kids call “teaching tape” – is the balance. Buckner loses his feet as he gets tangled up with the left tackle, but stays upright (while changing direction mind you) and gets to Mahomes for the sack.
His other sack that night was also a thing of beauty, coming from the other side of the line:
Obviously the Colts are going to expect big things from him, given his tape the past few seasons and the cost of acquiring him. But with his ability to collapse pockets from the inside, and his positional flexibility, the price is going to be worth it for Indianapolis.
81. Odell Beckham Jr., WR, Cleveland Browns
Outside of the 2017 season, when he was battling injuries, you could pretty much pencil Odell Beckham Jr. in for over 100 targets, over 75 receptions and over 1,000 receiving yards and be pretty confident that you’d hit on those bets. Even last year, Beckham came close to hitting all of those numbers, falling one reception shy of that 75 number.
But watching him in the Cleveland Browns offense in 2019, there were issues. He was good, but it was not the same level of dominance we have grown accustomed to seeing from him in years past. To that point, last season Baker Mayfield threw seven interceptions on passes in his direction, and Mayfield had a passer rating of just 70.5 when targeting Beckham. That was the lowest QB passer rating when targeted of Beckham’s career.
Of course, some of that is on the quarterback, and perhaps even more on the coach. There are reasons that Freddie Kitchens was fired and that Mayfield is under some pressure as 2020 beckons. I mean, are you putting this INT on Beckham’s plate:
Sure, he slows up a bit but Mayfield both overthrows him, and throws this into coverage. Not exactly on the WR.
But what about this interception:
Beckham is open on the dig route and Mayfield delivers a catchable ball, but the pass goes through the receiver’s hands and is intercepted. This is something to watch in 2020. Beckham was charged with seven drops this past season, his most since 2016.
If there is reason for optimism, it comes in the form of Kevin Stefanski. You can see how in the 2020 version of Cleveland’s offense, Beckham will fill the downfield threat role held by Stefon Diggs in the 2019 Minnesota Vikings’ offense. In such a system, Beckham could very well return to the top-flight form we have seen from him in year’s past.