Threads
-
To unlock all of features of Rams On Demand please take a brief moment to register. Registering is not only quick and easy, it also allows you access to additional features such as live chat, private messaging, and a host of other apps exclusive to Rams On Demand.
The Wade Phillips Experience
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 6 Replies
Click link below to watch video.
**********************************
https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/01/08/w...football-life-marcus-peters-aaron-donald-sean
The Wade Phillips Experience
By Jenny Vrentas
You’re forgiven if you don’t think of defense when you think about the Rams’ late-November win over the Chiefs. Fourteen touchdowns and 105 points were scored that night, though that included three defensive scores—including this one, just inside the two-minute warning of the first half.
Aaron Donald was lined up against left guard Cam Erving, and the reigning Defensive Player of the Year used a stutter step to get around Erving’s outside shoulder. As Donald closed in on Patrick Mahomes, he extended his right arm to bat the football out of the QB’s hand. It dropped to the grass, bouncing around just outside the Chiefs’ 10-yard line.
That’s when Samson Ebukam emerged, peeling off his blocker to make a beeline for the loose ball, scoop it, and sprint into the end zone. Watching this unfold from the sideline, Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman had one thought, That was all pursuit drill.
Pursuit drill is a favorite of Wade Phillips for reasons that—like the Rams’ defensive coordinator himself—date back several decades. In 1976, Phillips was working his first NFL gig, as the linebackers coach on his dad’s Houston Oilers staff.
One of his players was Robert Brazile, the first-round pick who always seemed to be wherever the action was on the field. One day, Phillips asked him how he managed this. Brazile replied, “Coach, I practice that.”
It’s a story that Phillips’s Rams players can recite, because he tells it to them when explaining the pursuit drill. There are a few different versions of the drill; one involves giving the ball to the running back, then the defensive players chase him all the way down the sideline until they catch him. But they all involve running to the ball, like Ebukam did on that fumble recovery touchdown, and this lesson: It doesn’t take talent to give effort.
Brazile was a Hall of Famer, and when Phillips moved the next season to coach the Oilers’ defensive line, he worked with Curley Culp and Elvin Bethea, both of whom would also be fitted for gold jackets. “I thought I was a pretty good coach then,” Phillips says. “I didn’t realize those guys were just better than everybody.” His sense of humor is another thing that has been enduring.
Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
Phillips has been calling defenses in professional football for nearly 40 years, which means he is able to recall a time when, if an opponent ran a motion on a offensive play once in a game, that was a big deal. Now offenses, including that of his own team, are running multiple motions on a single play.
In some ways, the 71-year-old, white-haired defensive coordinator with an age-stiffened gait is the counterbalance to all the things that we associate with the 2018 Rams, from their explosive offense to a 32-year-old head coach who is the proof of concept for the NFL’s youth movement.
Phillips jokes that he’s coached for about every team in the NFL—in reality, the number is 10—from position coach to three stints as a head coach (six if you include interim stints). The message behind the Brazile story resonates with players, but in retelling it, a few temporarily blanked on the Hall of Famer’s name. Brazile retired after the 1984 season—not a single member of Phillips’s current unit was born before 1986.
But Phillips has a unique ability to be rooted in both the past and the present. How else would he, and his defense, be able to span eras? When he reported to training camp wearing a gray T-shirt printed with “Fortnite legend,” that was entirely in character, even if his only experience with the video game was watching his grandson play.
“Coach Phillips is just as young as we are,” rookie defensive end John Franklin-Myers, who turned 22 in September, says earnestly. Huh? He explains that he thought a coaching legend like Phillips would be stern and frightening. Instead he discovered a punster with a penchant for memes.
When Phillips was the defensive coordinator in Denver, he made a point of learning the lyrics to popular songs, like Drake’s “Started From The Bottom,” surprising his players by being able to spit some rhymes. He joined Twitter nearly a decade ago, tapping out one-liners on his iPhone from his @sonofbum account. In April, he addressed the Rams’ flurry of personnel moves to his 173,000 followers: “You asked what’s Cookin’ with the Rams-they say we are getting too many star players. So Suh us!”
Other than receiver Brandin Cooks, the Rams’ big acquisitions were mostly on Phillips’s side of the ball: cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters, and defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh. Each had the potential to be key pieces for his defense, but all three had also been disciplined for on-field behavior on their previous teams. (Last month, Peters made headlines again for going up into the stands at the LA Coliseum to confront a fan during the Rams’ loss to the Eagles.)
Phillips didn’t need to make any kind of sell job to win over Peters. During their first conversation, after the Chiefs traded their former first-round draft pick, Peters says he called his new coach a “player,” a word not often applied to a septuagenarian.
“A player,” Peters clarifies, “is somebody that is chill, that is calm; in every situation, they are gonna be themselves. They’re not ever gonna get out of character.”
When they arrived at the Cal-Lutheran campus, about an hour north of L.A. for organized team activities, Peters says he began to “fall in love” with Phillips’s process of putting their defense together, beginning to understand how he’d gotten the most out of his players at his previous coaching stops.
“How enthused he was about teaching us football, how enthused he was to be able to work with us, to just be able to have a chance to get out and test the grass with us again,” Peters says. “You’ve got to appreciate a guy who appreciates going out there and just smelling grass. Even though we weren't getting ready to play for a game, he knew that were we were preparing for something that was gonna ultimately, in the long run, pay off.”
Bum and Wade, together at Texans training camp in 2011.
Bob Levey/Getty Images
In the years before Bum Phillips died in 2013, he was a fixture at Texans practices. About 35 years after Bum hired his son to his Oilers staff, Wade was back in Houston, coordinating the Texans defense. Bum would come out to regular weekday practices, wearing his big bucket cowboy hat and watching from a golf cart.
“That was one of my favorite things about the NFL,” says Connor Barwin, the veteran Giants linebacker who played two seasons under Phillips in Houston and one more in Los Angeles. “To have his 80-something-year-old dad watching his son coach, who had already been coaching the NFL for 30, 40 years—I mean, Wade wasn’t young. But it was the coolest, loving thing I’d ever seen.”
Phillips wrote a book, “Son of Bum: Lessons My Dad Taught Me About Football and Life,” after his dominant defense helped the Broncos win Super Bowl 50. His dad taught him to be honest with his players, and Bum was also the root of his preference for the 3-4 base defense, which was good against the run and offered more ways to rush the passer. Since his first NFL gig on Bum’s Oilers staff, after a few years coaching in the high school and college ranks, Phillips has been collecting the principles he still practices today.
“In pro football, I started realizing that one nose guard was different than the other, and that you had to play to his strengths and how he played,” Phillips says. “They have a certain gap responsibility, but how they play it depends on the individual.”
During Phillips’s first stint with the Broncos, from 1989-94, as defensive coordinator then head coach, Greg Kragen was a small, quick nose guard whom they often used on stunts. In Buffalo, he played the 375-pound Ted Washington directly over the center, because he could overpower opponents. Suh is a powerful player who is also versatile enough to line up at nose tackle or defensive end, where he’s sometimes playing over a tight end, a big advantage for the Rams.
When players come to Phillips asking him if they can play something a different way, such as a rush technique or where they line up, he never says no—the answer is, “Yeah, if you can.” His rule is, if you’re good enough to freelance, you can go ahead. If not, you’ll do it his way. “That’s how he thinks, which is a great way to look at things,”
Barwin says. “He’s been around so many great players, and he’s learned a lot from them. And that’s why he’s not shutting that down and saying, Lookit, DeMarcus Ware used to do this, so you need to do this. Well, then he had J.J. (Watt) or somebody, and they were like, Hey, can I do it this way? And Wade learned from them.”
Phillips recalls fielding questions when he was hired by the Rams about how Donald would transition from a 4-3 to a 3-4. “Well, he would fit in any defense,” Phillips says, with a chuckle. “But we try to put him in a position to make plays and do what he does, which is attack quickly.”
Franklin-Myers, the rookie, was in the middle of describing some of the ways they do this through stunts—the end may pick off the guard, while Donald loops around the outside—when a veteran teammate poked his head out of the showers and told him not to give away their secrets.
The Rams have the best defensive player in the league, and were aggressive in acquiring new personnel all the way through the trade deadline, when they dealt for Dante Fowler, Jr. Still, the unit ended the regular season in the middle of the pack in yards and points allowed. Before each game, Phillips always gives his players the same message: “The mistakes are mine.” After that shootout with the Chiefs, the Rams had a bye week, giving Phillips time to make his own corrections.
Last year, Barwin recalls the Rams defense began to click when Phillips decided midseason to reimagine Michael Brockers, who had played nose tackle for the first five seasons of his NFL career, as a defensive end.
This year, Phillips’s in-season adjustment was to call more zone coverage on the back end, hoping to better utilize Peters’s lateral quickness and ability to read routes after the cornerback got off to a bumpy start while also dealing with a calf injury; the secondary also benefitted from Talib’s return in early December from an ankle injury that landed him on short-term injured reserve.
“S---, everybody ain’t going to have an amazing year,” says Peters. “But all I know is how to be myself and rely on what got me here and that's me trusting and believing in my techniques and my instincts and making the plays when they happen. On the back end, that’s Wade just knowing, we may need to do something a tad different. I appreciate him. It doesn't just help just one person, it helps the overall defense, the mindset of, See ball, get ball.”
In the final five games of the regular season, the Rams took the ball away from their opponent 10 times. Besides points, Phillips quips, turnovers are the most important factor in winning a game.
Phillips in 1993, on the sideline during his first game as Broncos head coach.
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
Remember the run-and-shoot era? Phillips does. Specifically, he remembers a divisional round playoff game in January 1992 between the Broncos and Oilers. Phillips was in charge of Denver’s defense then, and they quickly fell behind, 14-0.
Warren Moon passed for 325 yards and three touchdowns that day leading the Oilers’ run-and-shoot offense, and it wasn’t until Houston’s final possession that the Broncos forced them to punt. Denver escaped with a 26-24 victory after a dramatic game-winning march by John Elway, dubbed Drive II.
“For a while, that was the rage of the league and hard to stop,” Phillips says. Experience has taught him there’s always something that’s challenging to stop. Defense is about play recognition, and the more defenders see plays that were different from what they were used to seeing, like RPOs last year and the jet motions this year, the better they get at knowing what’s coming. In other words, now is the time for his defense to be peaking.
Make no mistake, the 2018 Rams defense is not the historic 2015 Broncos unit, which, in Super Bowl 50, stopped a Panthers team that had scored a total of 80 points in its first two playoff games.
Just one year later, though, Gary Kubiak retired as the Broncos head coach due to health issues, and Phillips was also replaced. It didn’t take long for McVay to ask him to be the yin to his yang in Los Angeles, the head coach in daycare paired with the defensive coordinator on Medicare, as Phillips famously joked on his Twitter account.
Among the Rams’ eight wins to open this season was a 23-20 victory in Denver, after which McVay presented Phillips with a game ball. This is special, not because we beat the Broncos—because of you guys, Phillips told the team in the post-game locker room. I appreciate it. I love you guys.
“People always look at stats, and I look at them, too,” Phillips says. “Yeah, you want to be like we were at Denver when we won the Super Bowl. That was a special group. But I think we’ve got a special group here.”
There’s more than one way to play nose tackle, to build a defense, to win a championship. Football is always changing. But for four decades, Phillips has been a constant.
**********************************
https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/01/08/w...football-life-marcus-peters-aaron-donald-sean
The Wade Phillips Experience
By Jenny Vrentas
You’re forgiven if you don’t think of defense when you think about the Rams’ late-November win over the Chiefs. Fourteen touchdowns and 105 points were scored that night, though that included three defensive scores—including this one, just inside the two-minute warning of the first half.
Aaron Donald was lined up against left guard Cam Erving, and the reigning Defensive Player of the Year used a stutter step to get around Erving’s outside shoulder. As Donald closed in on Patrick Mahomes, he extended his right arm to bat the football out of the QB’s hand. It dropped to the grass, bouncing around just outside the Chiefs’ 10-yard line.
That’s when Samson Ebukam emerged, peeling off his blocker to make a beeline for the loose ball, scoop it, and sprint into the end zone. Watching this unfold from the sideline, Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman had one thought, That was all pursuit drill.
Pursuit drill is a favorite of Wade Phillips for reasons that—like the Rams’ defensive coordinator himself—date back several decades. In 1976, Phillips was working his first NFL gig, as the linebackers coach on his dad’s Houston Oilers staff.
One of his players was Robert Brazile, the first-round pick who always seemed to be wherever the action was on the field. One day, Phillips asked him how he managed this. Brazile replied, “Coach, I practice that.”
It’s a story that Phillips’s Rams players can recite, because he tells it to them when explaining the pursuit drill. There are a few different versions of the drill; one involves giving the ball to the running back, then the defensive players chase him all the way down the sideline until they catch him. But they all involve running to the ball, like Ebukam did on that fumble recovery touchdown, and this lesson: It doesn’t take talent to give effort.
Brazile was a Hall of Famer, and when Phillips moved the next season to coach the Oilers’ defensive line, he worked with Curley Culp and Elvin Bethea, both of whom would also be fitted for gold jackets. “I thought I was a pretty good coach then,” Phillips says. “I didn’t realize those guys were just better than everybody.” His sense of humor is another thing that has been enduring.
Wesley Hitt/Getty Images
Phillips has been calling defenses in professional football for nearly 40 years, which means he is able to recall a time when, if an opponent ran a motion on a offensive play once in a game, that was a big deal. Now offenses, including that of his own team, are running multiple motions on a single play.
In some ways, the 71-year-old, white-haired defensive coordinator with an age-stiffened gait is the counterbalance to all the things that we associate with the 2018 Rams, from their explosive offense to a 32-year-old head coach who is the proof of concept for the NFL’s youth movement.
Phillips jokes that he’s coached for about every team in the NFL—in reality, the number is 10—from position coach to three stints as a head coach (six if you include interim stints). The message behind the Brazile story resonates with players, but in retelling it, a few temporarily blanked on the Hall of Famer’s name. Brazile retired after the 1984 season—not a single member of Phillips’s current unit was born before 1986.
But Phillips has a unique ability to be rooted in both the past and the present. How else would he, and his defense, be able to span eras? When he reported to training camp wearing a gray T-shirt printed with “Fortnite legend,” that was entirely in character, even if his only experience with the video game was watching his grandson play.
“Coach Phillips is just as young as we are,” rookie defensive end John Franklin-Myers, who turned 22 in September, says earnestly. Huh? He explains that he thought a coaching legend like Phillips would be stern and frightening. Instead he discovered a punster with a penchant for memes.
When Phillips was the defensive coordinator in Denver, he made a point of learning the lyrics to popular songs, like Drake’s “Started From The Bottom,” surprising his players by being able to spit some rhymes. He joined Twitter nearly a decade ago, tapping out one-liners on his iPhone from his @sonofbum account. In April, he addressed the Rams’ flurry of personnel moves to his 173,000 followers: “You asked what’s Cookin’ with the Rams-they say we are getting too many star players. So Suh us!”
Other than receiver Brandin Cooks, the Rams’ big acquisitions were mostly on Phillips’s side of the ball: cornerbacks Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters, and defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh. Each had the potential to be key pieces for his defense, but all three had also been disciplined for on-field behavior on their previous teams. (Last month, Peters made headlines again for going up into the stands at the LA Coliseum to confront a fan during the Rams’ loss to the Eagles.)
Phillips didn’t need to make any kind of sell job to win over Peters. During their first conversation, after the Chiefs traded their former first-round draft pick, Peters says he called his new coach a “player,” a word not often applied to a septuagenarian.
“A player,” Peters clarifies, “is somebody that is chill, that is calm; in every situation, they are gonna be themselves. They’re not ever gonna get out of character.”
When they arrived at the Cal-Lutheran campus, about an hour north of L.A. for organized team activities, Peters says he began to “fall in love” with Phillips’s process of putting their defense together, beginning to understand how he’d gotten the most out of his players at his previous coaching stops.
“How enthused he was about teaching us football, how enthused he was to be able to work with us, to just be able to have a chance to get out and test the grass with us again,” Peters says. “You’ve got to appreciate a guy who appreciates going out there and just smelling grass. Even though we weren't getting ready to play for a game, he knew that were we were preparing for something that was gonna ultimately, in the long run, pay off.”
Bum and Wade, together at Texans training camp in 2011.
Bob Levey/Getty Images
In the years before Bum Phillips died in 2013, he was a fixture at Texans practices. About 35 years after Bum hired his son to his Oilers staff, Wade was back in Houston, coordinating the Texans defense. Bum would come out to regular weekday practices, wearing his big bucket cowboy hat and watching from a golf cart.
“That was one of my favorite things about the NFL,” says Connor Barwin, the veteran Giants linebacker who played two seasons under Phillips in Houston and one more in Los Angeles. “To have his 80-something-year-old dad watching his son coach, who had already been coaching the NFL for 30, 40 years—I mean, Wade wasn’t young. But it was the coolest, loving thing I’d ever seen.”
Phillips wrote a book, “Son of Bum: Lessons My Dad Taught Me About Football and Life,” after his dominant defense helped the Broncos win Super Bowl 50. His dad taught him to be honest with his players, and Bum was also the root of his preference for the 3-4 base defense, which was good against the run and offered more ways to rush the passer. Since his first NFL gig on Bum’s Oilers staff, after a few years coaching in the high school and college ranks, Phillips has been collecting the principles he still practices today.
“In pro football, I started realizing that one nose guard was different than the other, and that you had to play to his strengths and how he played,” Phillips says. “They have a certain gap responsibility, but how they play it depends on the individual.”
During Phillips’s first stint with the Broncos, from 1989-94, as defensive coordinator then head coach, Greg Kragen was a small, quick nose guard whom they often used on stunts. In Buffalo, he played the 375-pound Ted Washington directly over the center, because he could overpower opponents. Suh is a powerful player who is also versatile enough to line up at nose tackle or defensive end, where he’s sometimes playing over a tight end, a big advantage for the Rams.
When players come to Phillips asking him if they can play something a different way, such as a rush technique or where they line up, he never says no—the answer is, “Yeah, if you can.” His rule is, if you’re good enough to freelance, you can go ahead. If not, you’ll do it his way. “That’s how he thinks, which is a great way to look at things,”
Barwin says. “He’s been around so many great players, and he’s learned a lot from them. And that’s why he’s not shutting that down and saying, Lookit, DeMarcus Ware used to do this, so you need to do this. Well, then he had J.J. (Watt) or somebody, and they were like, Hey, can I do it this way? And Wade learned from them.”
Phillips recalls fielding questions when he was hired by the Rams about how Donald would transition from a 4-3 to a 3-4. “Well, he would fit in any defense,” Phillips says, with a chuckle. “But we try to put him in a position to make plays and do what he does, which is attack quickly.”
Franklin-Myers, the rookie, was in the middle of describing some of the ways they do this through stunts—the end may pick off the guard, while Donald loops around the outside—when a veteran teammate poked his head out of the showers and told him not to give away their secrets.
The Rams have the best defensive player in the league, and were aggressive in acquiring new personnel all the way through the trade deadline, when they dealt for Dante Fowler, Jr. Still, the unit ended the regular season in the middle of the pack in yards and points allowed. Before each game, Phillips always gives his players the same message: “The mistakes are mine.” After that shootout with the Chiefs, the Rams had a bye week, giving Phillips time to make his own corrections.
Last year, Barwin recalls the Rams defense began to click when Phillips decided midseason to reimagine Michael Brockers, who had played nose tackle for the first five seasons of his NFL career, as a defensive end.
This year, Phillips’s in-season adjustment was to call more zone coverage on the back end, hoping to better utilize Peters’s lateral quickness and ability to read routes after the cornerback got off to a bumpy start while also dealing with a calf injury; the secondary also benefitted from Talib’s return in early December from an ankle injury that landed him on short-term injured reserve.
“S---, everybody ain’t going to have an amazing year,” says Peters. “But all I know is how to be myself and rely on what got me here and that's me trusting and believing in my techniques and my instincts and making the plays when they happen. On the back end, that’s Wade just knowing, we may need to do something a tad different. I appreciate him. It doesn't just help just one person, it helps the overall defense, the mindset of, See ball, get ball.”
In the final five games of the regular season, the Rams took the ball away from their opponent 10 times. Besides points, Phillips quips, turnovers are the most important factor in winning a game.
Phillips in 1993, on the sideline during his first game as Broncos head coach.
Focus on Sport/Getty Images
Remember the run-and-shoot era? Phillips does. Specifically, he remembers a divisional round playoff game in January 1992 between the Broncos and Oilers. Phillips was in charge of Denver’s defense then, and they quickly fell behind, 14-0.
Warren Moon passed for 325 yards and three touchdowns that day leading the Oilers’ run-and-shoot offense, and it wasn’t until Houston’s final possession that the Broncos forced them to punt. Denver escaped with a 26-24 victory after a dramatic game-winning march by John Elway, dubbed Drive II.
“For a while, that was the rage of the league and hard to stop,” Phillips says. Experience has taught him there’s always something that’s challenging to stop. Defense is about play recognition, and the more defenders see plays that were different from what they were used to seeing, like RPOs last year and the jet motions this year, the better they get at knowing what’s coming. In other words, now is the time for his defense to be peaking.
Make no mistake, the 2018 Rams defense is not the historic 2015 Broncos unit, which, in Super Bowl 50, stopped a Panthers team that had scored a total of 80 points in its first two playoff games.
Just one year later, though, Gary Kubiak retired as the Broncos head coach due to health issues, and Phillips was also replaced. It didn’t take long for McVay to ask him to be the yin to his yang in Los Angeles, the head coach in daycare paired with the defensive coordinator on Medicare, as Phillips famously joked on his Twitter account.
Among the Rams’ eight wins to open this season was a 23-20 victory in Denver, after which McVay presented Phillips with a game ball. This is special, not because we beat the Broncos—because of you guys, Phillips told the team in the post-game locker room. I appreciate it. I love you guys.
“People always look at stats, and I look at them, too,” Phillips says. “Yeah, you want to be like we were at Denver when we won the Super Bowl. That was a special group. But I think we’ve got a special group here.”
There’s more than one way to play nose tackle, to build a defense, to win a championship. Football is always changing. But for four decades, Phillips has been a constant.
PFF: NFL front seven rankings - Rams 3d
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 4 Replies
https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/pro-nfl-front-seven-rankings-all-32-teams-after-17-weeks
NFL front seven rankings: All 32 teams after 17 weeks
BY MICHAEL RENNER
RamsWire
Let’s highlight the good and the bad of the front sevens around the league.
1. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
Philly was still the gold standard around the league in 2018 thanks in large part to one Fletcher Cox. The defensive tackle somehow took his game to even another level this season with a career-high 95 total pressures. That figure was 17 more than any other player in the NFL not named Aaron Donald.
2. JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
The Jaguars pass rush was still one of the league’s best this season, they simply didn’t play with nearly as many leads. Yannick Ngakoue, Calais Campbell, and Malik Jackson all topped 50 pressures on the season, but the unit’s main struggles came in run defense. Campbell and Marcell Dareus were the only two to grade over 75.0 in that regard.
3. LOS ANGELES RAMS
This is what having Aaron Donald on your team does for you. 53 pressures make you an elite defensive tackle in the NFL. Only six interior defenders had more. Donald doubled that output this year. He is so far away in his own category that he lifted an otherwise unexciting front seven all the way to a top-three ranking.
4. HOUSTON TEXANS
J.J. Watt was back to his utterly dominant self. He was once again named a PFF All-Pro, and his 75 pressures were the second-most among edge defenders. Watt was also top-10 among edge defenders in run stop percentage along with teammate Jadeveon Clowney.
5. CHICAGO BEARS
The Bears are the only team in the NFL to feature multiple All-Pro players in their front seven. Khalil Mack’s impact was quite apparent from Week 1, as he racked up 69 pressures despite playing through injury. Akiem Hicks was a second-team All-Pro as he did it both versus run and pass. He was ninth among defensive tackles in pressures with 51 and second in run stops with 30.
6. DALLAS COWBOYS
This was one of the few units on this list that was fueled by their linebacking corps. Leighton Vander Esch (84.9) and Jaylon Smith (84.4) finished the season as PFF’s seventh and eighth-highest graded linebackers, respectively. Both were the definition of complete linebackers, and their 99 combined stops were the second-most of any group in the NFL.
7. NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
Don’t sleep on the Saints defense come playoff time. This is a team with more talent than maybe the results would suggest at times this season. Sheldon Rankins (82.5 overall), David Onyemata (83.4), and Cameron Jordan(89.7) all earned grades above 80.0 for their play this season, while Demario Davis was also named a PFF Pro-Bowler in the NFC.
8. BUFFALO BILLS
Not enough has been made of the year Jerry Hughes just had in Buffalo. He didn’t rack up the sack totals because he only rushed the passer 375 times, but on a per play basis, only Aaron Donald won more often as a pass rusher. His 10.9 pass-rushing productivity was tops among edge defenders.
9. MINNESOTA VIKINGS
The Vikings front seven was solid once again this season, but just like their secondary, they didn’t quite live up to expectations. Every single starter up front beside Sheldon Richardson graded out lower than they did in 2017.
10. CAROLINA PANTHERS
At this point, we have run out of superlatives for Luke Kuechly, who led the NFL in stops this season with 61. Unfortunately for Carolina, he was about the only one who had a standout year. Kawann Short took a huge step back from last season, racking up 15 fewer pressures than in 2017.
11. WASHINGTON REDSKINS
The good news is that after investing heavily up front, the Redskins had one of the better units in the NFL this past season. The bad news is that the first rounders the past two seasons weren’t a huge part of it. Daron Payne (71.9 overall) and Jonathan Allen (71.5 overall) had fairly pedestrian grades this season on the Redskins interior.
12. DENVER BRONCOS
Von Miller came on strong after a slow start and was once again a second-team PFF All-Pro by the end of the year. The most head-scratching thing about the Broncos front-7 though was why defensive tackle Shelby Harris didn’t receive more time. He earned a 90.8 overall grade in 391 snaps, finishing top-15 at the position in run stop percentage.
13. BALTIMORE RAVENS
It is a deep impending free-agent edge class only made deeper by the emergence of Za’Darius Smith this season. His 80.2 pass-rushing grade was 11th among starting edge defenders as he racked up 60 pressures on the season.
14. PITTSBURGH STEELERS
Don’t look now, but T.J. Watt started putting it all together as a pass rusher down the stretch this season. More of a weapon as a blitzer and on stunts his first season, Watt started winning his one-on-one’s far more consistently the second half of this season. Only Von Miller had a higher pass-rushing grade than Watt from the start of Week 11.
15. LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
This ranking obviously looks a lot different if Joey Bosa was healthy for the whole season. Even still, neither Bosa nor Melvin Ingram III were at the top of their game this season. Neither earned a grade above 80.0 after both being above 85.0 last year.
16. SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
Bobby Wagner’s 91.9 overall grade obviously carried this front seven and the Seahawks defense as a whole. Let’s give some love to rookie Poona Ford though, who was a dominant run defender in limited time. He only played 231 snaps on the season, but his 12.6% run stop percentage was fourth-best at the position.
17. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
The Chiefs’ front seven ranking depends almost solely on how you weigh each aspect. Judging by run defense and coverage they’d be at the bottom. Judging by the pass rush, they’d be right near the top. As such, they fall at 17. Chris Jones and Dee Ford put together monstrous seasons with 73 and 78 pressures, respectively. Free agent Anthony Hitchens, on the other hand, ended up as the lowest-graded starting linebacker in the NFL.
18. TENNESSEE TITANS
The Titans’ front seven featured an up and coming linebacker that deserves more attention. 2017 fifth-round pick Jayon Brown ended up as the ninth-highest graded linebacker in the NFL this season. His 69.4 passer rating when targeted was the second-best of any linebacker in the NFL, as he didn’t allow a single touchdown all season long.
19. GREEN BAY PACKERS
The Packers mixed one of the league’s best interiors with arguably the worst group of edge-rushers to mixed results. Kenny Clark proved he was the league’s preeminent nose tackle with a 90.5 overall grade this season, while Clay Matthews proved his best days are long gone with a 63.9 overall grade.
20. NEW YORK JETS
We couldn’t technically include Jamal Adams in this, as that would be double counting from the secondary rankings, but he obviously plays a big role within his team’s front seven. This unit saw former first-rounder Darron Lee take a huge step forward after a disappointing start to his career. His 84.8 coverage grade was third-best at the position.
21. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
The continued mediocrity of Solomon Thomas as a pass rusher is starting to reach concerning levels in San Francisco. The former third overall pick ranked 90th out of 109 edge rushers this season in pass-rushing productivity. Nine different edge defenders from the 2017 draft class ranked higher.
22. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
The Colts’ defense got far better results than the sum of their parts for most of the season, and their ranking here is a reflection of that. One player though who keyed it all was linebacker Darius Leonard. The Colts’ linebacker duo of Leonard and Anthony Walker combined for the most defensive stops of any duo in the NFL – 10 more than the next closest duo.
23. ATLANTA FALCONS
Being without Deion Jones for most of the season was a death knell for the Falcons up front. The bigger concern going forward though has been the complete disappearance of Vic Beasley. He ranked dead last among edge defenders in overall grade and made only 17 tackles all season long.
24. NEW YORK GIANTS
The Giants linebackers were yet again a nightmare in 2018. Despite five interceptions, Alec Ogletree still ended up with the eighth-worst coverage grade of any starter in the league. It wasn’t much better when Tae Davis was in though, as his 119.2 passer rating when targeted was among the worst in the NFL.
25. CINCINNATI BENGALS
Geno Atkins and the Bengals pass rush was still formidable at times, but they paired it with easily the worst linebacking corps in the NFL. Their linebackers allowed 1,806 yards in their coverage this season – 284 more than any other group in the league.
26. CLEVELAND BROWNS
There were certainly reasons to be encouraged on the Browns defense, but outside of Myles Garrett, their pass rush wasn’t one of them. I can’t even blame Larry Ogunjobi for being ineffective after playing a ludicrous 931 snaps at nose tackle this season, but Trevon Coley and Emmanuel Ogbah don’t have the same excuse. Coley had the second-worst pass-rushing productivity of any interior defender in the NFL while Ogbah was dead last among starting edges defenders.
27. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
While the rest of the group was generally ineffective, Trey Flowers‘ dominance this season is worth highlighting. He racked up 65 pressures, 13th-most of any player in the NFL, while splitting time between inside and outside on the Patriots defense. He also ranked fourth in run stop percentage among edge defenders in what was a career year.
28. MIAMI DOLPHINS
After losing Ndamukong Suh, the Dolphins’ interior could not affect opposing passing games. Davon Godchaux and Akeem Spence respectively ranked 79th and 98th out of 119 interior defenders in pass-rushing productivity this season. Somehow though, the 36-year old Cameron Wake was still kicking. He notched 54 pressures to lead the team by 15.
29. ARIZONA CARDINALS
The Cardinals’ front seven was about as uninspiring a unit as there was in the NFL. Even young players they were hoping to see take a step forward failed to perform. Former first-rounders Haason Reddick and Robert Nkemdiche earned grades of 61.3 and 59.5 overall, respectively. Nkemdiche notched all of 10 pressures in 10 games.
30. TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
Things could not have gone more wrong with the Bucs offseason additions this season. Jason Pierre-Paul and Vinny Curry both limped to their lowest-graded seasons at 60.4 and 58.4 overall, respectively. Even first round pick Vita Vea looked out of his depth for a good portion of the season before turning it on to the tune of six straight multi-pressure games to end the season.
31. DETROIT LIONS
As a team, only the lowly Raiders had a lower pass-rushing grade than the Lions this season. It would have been even uglier if not for rookie standout Da’Shawn Hand (87.4 overall). He was the only player in the entire front seven to have a pass-rushing grade over 75.0.
32. OAKLAND RAIDERS
When all was said and done, the Raiders sent out 23 different players in their front seven at one point or another. We could pile on this unit for days, but they aren’t completely bereft of hope. Rookie Maurice Hurst ended up as their highest-graded defensive linemen this season. He earned a 72.7 overall grade after falling all the way to the fifth round of the draft.
NFL front seven rankings: All 32 teams after 17 weeks
BY MICHAEL RENNER
RamsWire
Let’s highlight the good and the bad of the front sevens around the league.
1. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
Philly was still the gold standard around the league in 2018 thanks in large part to one Fletcher Cox. The defensive tackle somehow took his game to even another level this season with a career-high 95 total pressures. That figure was 17 more than any other player in the NFL not named Aaron Donald.
2. JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
The Jaguars pass rush was still one of the league’s best this season, they simply didn’t play with nearly as many leads. Yannick Ngakoue, Calais Campbell, and Malik Jackson all topped 50 pressures on the season, but the unit’s main struggles came in run defense. Campbell and Marcell Dareus were the only two to grade over 75.0 in that regard.
3. LOS ANGELES RAMS
This is what having Aaron Donald on your team does for you. 53 pressures make you an elite defensive tackle in the NFL. Only six interior defenders had more. Donald doubled that output this year. He is so far away in his own category that he lifted an otherwise unexciting front seven all the way to a top-three ranking.
4. HOUSTON TEXANS
J.J. Watt was back to his utterly dominant self. He was once again named a PFF All-Pro, and his 75 pressures were the second-most among edge defenders. Watt was also top-10 among edge defenders in run stop percentage along with teammate Jadeveon Clowney.
5. CHICAGO BEARS
The Bears are the only team in the NFL to feature multiple All-Pro players in their front seven. Khalil Mack’s impact was quite apparent from Week 1, as he racked up 69 pressures despite playing through injury. Akiem Hicks was a second-team All-Pro as he did it both versus run and pass. He was ninth among defensive tackles in pressures with 51 and second in run stops with 30.
6. DALLAS COWBOYS
This was one of the few units on this list that was fueled by their linebacking corps. Leighton Vander Esch (84.9) and Jaylon Smith (84.4) finished the season as PFF’s seventh and eighth-highest graded linebackers, respectively. Both were the definition of complete linebackers, and their 99 combined stops were the second-most of any group in the NFL.
7. NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
Don’t sleep on the Saints defense come playoff time. This is a team with more talent than maybe the results would suggest at times this season. Sheldon Rankins (82.5 overall), David Onyemata (83.4), and Cameron Jordan(89.7) all earned grades above 80.0 for their play this season, while Demario Davis was also named a PFF Pro-Bowler in the NFC.
8. BUFFALO BILLS
Not enough has been made of the year Jerry Hughes just had in Buffalo. He didn’t rack up the sack totals because he only rushed the passer 375 times, but on a per play basis, only Aaron Donald won more often as a pass rusher. His 10.9 pass-rushing productivity was tops among edge defenders.
9. MINNESOTA VIKINGS
The Vikings front seven was solid once again this season, but just like their secondary, they didn’t quite live up to expectations. Every single starter up front beside Sheldon Richardson graded out lower than they did in 2017.
10. CAROLINA PANTHERS
At this point, we have run out of superlatives for Luke Kuechly, who led the NFL in stops this season with 61. Unfortunately for Carolina, he was about the only one who had a standout year. Kawann Short took a huge step back from last season, racking up 15 fewer pressures than in 2017.
11. WASHINGTON REDSKINS
The good news is that after investing heavily up front, the Redskins had one of the better units in the NFL this past season. The bad news is that the first rounders the past two seasons weren’t a huge part of it. Daron Payne (71.9 overall) and Jonathan Allen (71.5 overall) had fairly pedestrian grades this season on the Redskins interior.
12. DENVER BRONCOS
Von Miller came on strong after a slow start and was once again a second-team PFF All-Pro by the end of the year. The most head-scratching thing about the Broncos front-7 though was why defensive tackle Shelby Harris didn’t receive more time. He earned a 90.8 overall grade in 391 snaps, finishing top-15 at the position in run stop percentage.
13. BALTIMORE RAVENS
It is a deep impending free-agent edge class only made deeper by the emergence of Za’Darius Smith this season. His 80.2 pass-rushing grade was 11th among starting edge defenders as he racked up 60 pressures on the season.
14. PITTSBURGH STEELERS
Don’t look now, but T.J. Watt started putting it all together as a pass rusher down the stretch this season. More of a weapon as a blitzer and on stunts his first season, Watt started winning his one-on-one’s far more consistently the second half of this season. Only Von Miller had a higher pass-rushing grade than Watt from the start of Week 11.
15. LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
This ranking obviously looks a lot different if Joey Bosa was healthy for the whole season. Even still, neither Bosa nor Melvin Ingram III were at the top of their game this season. Neither earned a grade above 80.0 after both being above 85.0 last year.
16. SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
Bobby Wagner’s 91.9 overall grade obviously carried this front seven and the Seahawks defense as a whole. Let’s give some love to rookie Poona Ford though, who was a dominant run defender in limited time. He only played 231 snaps on the season, but his 12.6% run stop percentage was fourth-best at the position.
17. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
The Chiefs’ front seven ranking depends almost solely on how you weigh each aspect. Judging by run defense and coverage they’d be at the bottom. Judging by the pass rush, they’d be right near the top. As such, they fall at 17. Chris Jones and Dee Ford put together monstrous seasons with 73 and 78 pressures, respectively. Free agent Anthony Hitchens, on the other hand, ended up as the lowest-graded starting linebacker in the NFL.
18. TENNESSEE TITANS
The Titans’ front seven featured an up and coming linebacker that deserves more attention. 2017 fifth-round pick Jayon Brown ended up as the ninth-highest graded linebacker in the NFL this season. His 69.4 passer rating when targeted was the second-best of any linebacker in the NFL, as he didn’t allow a single touchdown all season long.
19. GREEN BAY PACKERS
The Packers mixed one of the league’s best interiors with arguably the worst group of edge-rushers to mixed results. Kenny Clark proved he was the league’s preeminent nose tackle with a 90.5 overall grade this season, while Clay Matthews proved his best days are long gone with a 63.9 overall grade.
20. NEW YORK JETS
We couldn’t technically include Jamal Adams in this, as that would be double counting from the secondary rankings, but he obviously plays a big role within his team’s front seven. This unit saw former first-rounder Darron Lee take a huge step forward after a disappointing start to his career. His 84.8 coverage grade was third-best at the position.
21. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
The continued mediocrity of Solomon Thomas as a pass rusher is starting to reach concerning levels in San Francisco. The former third overall pick ranked 90th out of 109 edge rushers this season in pass-rushing productivity. Nine different edge defenders from the 2017 draft class ranked higher.
22. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
The Colts’ defense got far better results than the sum of their parts for most of the season, and their ranking here is a reflection of that. One player though who keyed it all was linebacker Darius Leonard. The Colts’ linebacker duo of Leonard and Anthony Walker combined for the most defensive stops of any duo in the NFL – 10 more than the next closest duo.
23. ATLANTA FALCONS
Being without Deion Jones for most of the season was a death knell for the Falcons up front. The bigger concern going forward though has been the complete disappearance of Vic Beasley. He ranked dead last among edge defenders in overall grade and made only 17 tackles all season long.
24. NEW YORK GIANTS
The Giants linebackers were yet again a nightmare in 2018. Despite five interceptions, Alec Ogletree still ended up with the eighth-worst coverage grade of any starter in the league. It wasn’t much better when Tae Davis was in though, as his 119.2 passer rating when targeted was among the worst in the NFL.
25. CINCINNATI BENGALS
Geno Atkins and the Bengals pass rush was still formidable at times, but they paired it with easily the worst linebacking corps in the NFL. Their linebackers allowed 1,806 yards in their coverage this season – 284 more than any other group in the league.
26. CLEVELAND BROWNS
There were certainly reasons to be encouraged on the Browns defense, but outside of Myles Garrett, their pass rush wasn’t one of them. I can’t even blame Larry Ogunjobi for being ineffective after playing a ludicrous 931 snaps at nose tackle this season, but Trevon Coley and Emmanuel Ogbah don’t have the same excuse. Coley had the second-worst pass-rushing productivity of any interior defender in the NFL while Ogbah was dead last among starting edges defenders.
27. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
While the rest of the group was generally ineffective, Trey Flowers‘ dominance this season is worth highlighting. He racked up 65 pressures, 13th-most of any player in the NFL, while splitting time between inside and outside on the Patriots defense. He also ranked fourth in run stop percentage among edge defenders in what was a career year.
28. MIAMI DOLPHINS
After losing Ndamukong Suh, the Dolphins’ interior could not affect opposing passing games. Davon Godchaux and Akeem Spence respectively ranked 79th and 98th out of 119 interior defenders in pass-rushing productivity this season. Somehow though, the 36-year old Cameron Wake was still kicking. He notched 54 pressures to lead the team by 15.
29. ARIZONA CARDINALS
The Cardinals’ front seven was about as uninspiring a unit as there was in the NFL. Even young players they were hoping to see take a step forward failed to perform. Former first-rounders Haason Reddick and Robert Nkemdiche earned grades of 61.3 and 59.5 overall, respectively. Nkemdiche notched all of 10 pressures in 10 games.
30. TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
Things could not have gone more wrong with the Bucs offseason additions this season. Jason Pierre-Paul and Vinny Curry both limped to their lowest-graded seasons at 60.4 and 58.4 overall, respectively. Even first round pick Vita Vea looked out of his depth for a good portion of the season before turning it on to the tune of six straight multi-pressure games to end the season.
31. DETROIT LIONS
As a team, only the lowly Raiders had a lower pass-rushing grade than the Lions this season. It would have been even uglier if not for rookie standout Da’Shawn Hand (87.4 overall). He was the only player in the entire front seven to have a pass-rushing grade over 75.0.
32. OAKLAND RAIDERS
When all was said and done, the Raiders sent out 23 different players in their front seven at one point or another. We could pile on this unit for days, but they aren’t completely bereft of hope. Rookie Maurice Hurst ended up as their highest-graded defensive linemen this season. He earned a 72.7 overall grade after falling all the way to the fifth round of the draft.
PFF: NFL secondary rankings after 17 weeks - Rams 6th
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 8 Replies
https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/pro-nfl-secondary-rankings-all-32-teams-after-17-weeks
NFL secondary rankings: All 32 teams after 17 weeks
BY MICHAEL RENNER
1. CHICAGO BEARS
No surprise here. The Bears’ secondary featured PFF’s first-team All-Prosafety Eddie Jackson and second-team All-Pro corner Kyler Fuller. What really separates them from the pack though is the lack of a weak link. Every single player that played at least 200 snaps in their secondary – Jackson, Fuller, Adrian Amos, Prince Amukamara, Bryce Callahan, and Sherrick McManis – all earned grades above 80.0.
2. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
The Patriots consistently get more out of their defensive backs than any team in the league. Their cornerback tandem this season of Stephon Gilmore(90.7 overall) and Jason McCourty (83.1) personifies that. Maligned at their last stops before New England, both put up the highest-graded seasons of their careers in 2018, combining to allow only 95 catches on 180 targets.
3. LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
Along with Chicago, the Chargers were the only other NFL team to put multiple members on the PFF All-Pro secondary. Desmond King II earned the first team Flex position for his work as the league’s best slot cornerback and Derwin James was second-team safety as a rookie. The scary thing is, that doesn’t even include Casey Hayward Jr., who just last year won PFF’s award for top coverage defender.
4. HOUSTON TEXANS
Houston is a defensive success story that should give everyone on this list hope. After plugging holes at safety with Tyrann Mathieu and Justin Reid over the offseason, one of the worst units in the league turned around to be one of the best. All four starters earned grades of 74.7 or above, while Kareem Jackson had a career year at 85.7 overall.
5. BALTIMORE RAVENS
You could argue no team in the NFL has more invested in their secondary with first-round picks at both starting corner positions and high-priced free agents at both safety positions as well as their nickel corner. That may also be the reason why their defense was so dominant in 2018. Marlon Humphreywas the highest graded of the bunch as he came on strong in year two. Humphrey allowed a catch rate of only 52.5% and only 464 yards on the season.
6. LOS ANGELES RAMS
While Marcus Peters grabbed a lot of the headlines for his up and down play this year, two other guys quietly had outstanding seasons for Los Angeles. John Johnson III is quickly making a name for himself as one of the best safeties in the league after picking off four passes and breaking up seven others this season. Nickell Robey-Coleman, on the other hand, still doesn’t get the respect he deserves as one of the most consistent slot corners in the league after earning an 82.6 overall grade this year.
7. CINCINNATI BENGALS
While the defense as a whole didn’t live up to their early-season hype, much of that was due to a linebacking corps that gave up more yards in coverage than any other in the NFL. Rookie Jessie Bates looks like he’ll be a stud in Cincinnati for a while after allowing a passer rating of only 59.9 in his coverage this year.
8. CLEVELAND BROWNS
Another team that gives hope to all the struggling secondaries out there. With the simple additions of Denzel Ward (79.0 overall) and Damarious Randall (72.7) along with a breakout year from Jabrill Peppers (77.6), the Browns secondary went from one that Gregg Williams blamed for not letting him call the coverages he wanted, to a top-10 unit.
9. MINNESOTA VIKINGS
They’re obviously still a solid secondary, but most in Minnesota had higher expectations than this. Much of the blame can be aimed towards their two biggest stars, as Xavier Rhodes and Harrison Smith took huge steps back from a season ago. Rhodes had a career-low grade after allowing a career-high catch rate (65.2%), and while Smith’s 79.7 grade this year was good, it came a year after his 91.8 overall grade was tops in the NFL.
10. BUFFALO BILLS
After a dominant rookie season, Tre’Davious White was once again stingy in year two. He was given the task of following around opposing number one receivers in seven separate games this year and still only allowed 357 yards and 30 catches for the entire season.
11. DALLAS COWBOYS
Byron Jones’ emergence as one of the league’s top cornerbacks was one of the crazier stories of the entire season. After spending the last two years at safety, Jones turned into a PFF first-team All-Pro in his very first year back at the position he played at Connecticut. He allowed only 37 of 69 targets to be completed and had 10 pass breakups on the year.
12. JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
No unit in the NFL disappointed more this season than the Jacksonville secondary. With all four starters returning and remaining healthy for the majority of the season, their fall from the top was inexplicable. Barry Churchearned a 50.4 overall grade before being cut late in the year, while Jalen Ramsey gave up almost 200 more yards than he did last season.
13. TENNESSEE TITANS
The Titans have paid a lot of money in recent seasons to fill out this secondary, but it’s their ability to identify talent in the draft that’s still carried them. 2016 third-round pick Kevin Byard was a second team PFF All-Pro safety while last year’s first rounder, Adoree’ Jackson, was the second-highest graded player in the secondary.
14. ATLANTA FALCONS
The Falcons were yet another victim of inexplicable player regression. Robert Alford allowed a catch rate that was over 12 percentage points higher than 2017, and he also allowed 175 more yards than he did a season ago. His 138.9 passer rating and 12 penalties were second-worst and worst in the league, respectively.
15. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
All things considered, I think the Colts are happy with ending up in the middle of the back this season. The Colts secondary accounted for a total of $11.2 million against their cap this season – a figure lower than 10 individual secondary players in the league this year.
16. NEW YORK JETS
Jamal Adams‘ career is off to a Hall of Fame-esque trajectory through two seasons. He was one of the league’s most feared defensive weapons this year and ended up as a PFF first-team All-Pro safety. Adams’ 44 total defensive stops and 22 quarterback pressures were both the most of any safety in the league.
17. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
After trading away their top cornerback and being without Eric Berry for the majority of the season, I think they’ll take 17th. The play of Steven Nelson was a big reason why. Giving up 825 yards as he did doesn’t sound great, but Nelson was targeted 113 times on the season – eight more times than any other player in the NFL. He allowed only 60 to be completed for a passer rating of 76.8.
18. SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
Even if the results weren’t horrible, the Seattle secondary sorely missed Richard Sherman this season. Their corners Justin Coleman (90.0 passer rating against), Tre Flowers (111.8), and Shaquill Griffin (100.4) all allowed at least 500 yards and 60-plus percent catch rate on the season.
19. PITTSBURGH STEELERS
It wasn’t pretty early in the season for the Steelers secondary, but they bounced back over the course of the season. Safety Sean Davis’ improvement was a big reason why. Davis’ 69.8 overall grade represented a huge jump over his 47.3 from a season ago when he was one of the lowest-graded in the NFL. He cleaned up his missed tackles as well going from 19 last year to 12 this season.
20. ARIZONA CARDINALS
The top-four of the Cardinals’ back end was solid enough, but it was the other corners they threw out there that were routinely the issue. Brandon Williams, David Amerson, and Leonard Johnson all earned grades under 60.0 for the season.
21. NEW YORK GIANTS
While this unit has lost a good amount of talent since their peak a couple of years ago, even the holdovers from that unit regressed mightily. Janoris Jenkins allowed a passer rating of 109.3 in his coverage this year while Landon Collins was even worse at 127.8.
22. WASHINGTON REDSKINS
Even with a career year from D.J. Swearinger (79.8 overall), the Redskins secondary still couldn’t overcome the injury to Quinton Dunbar. Fabian Moreau was thrust into more playing time, and he allowed a 65.8% catch rate and a 105.8 passer rating.
23. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
With how many injuries the Eagles suffered on the back end, it’s a minor miracle they are still 23rd. Fifteen different players received snaps in the Eagles secondary, with 12 of them getting at least 100. Malcolm Jenkins 83.3 coverage grade on 1,038 snaps was a big reason why things didn’t completely fall apart for Philadelphia.
24. DENVER BRONCOS
The No Fly Zone is no more. Chris Harris Jr. was still at the top of his game with an 86.0 overall grade, but Bradley Roby didn’t handle the transition to a full-time starter as well as John Elway had hoped. He allowed 807 yards, a 65.9% catch rate and a 117.3 passer rating in his coverage.
25. TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
Maybe the only surprising thing about the Bucs ranking here is that it wasn’t lower. No player earned a grade of 70.0 or above this season, while Justin Evans had the highest graded at 67.6 overall. Everyone knew it wasn’t going to last forever for the 35-year-old Brent Grimes, and after allowing a career-high 116.3 passer rating this past year, it’s probably the end of a great career.
26. MIAMI DOLPHINS
Minkah Fitzpatrick’s rookie year was incredibly encouraging, although being among the league leaders with 10 penalties is something that should be cleaned up going forward. Fitzpatrick only allowed a catch rate of 56.5% and a passer rating of 69.0. The same cannot be said for Bobby McCain, who allowed a 73.5% catch rate and 120.7 passer rating, both of which were among the worst at the position in the NFL.
27. GREEN BAY PACKERS
While the Packers were almost guaranteed to get better from a season ago, jumping up only to 27th wasn’t what they had in mind. There’s still reason for hope though, as first-round pick Jaire Alexander flashed brilliance at times. His five pass-breakup performance against the Rams was one of the best performances from a cornerback all season.
28. NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
After Patrick Robinson went down for the year in Week 3, it thrust more playing time onto P.J. Williams‘ plate, and the young cornerback was nothing short of a liability. He allowed 58 of 78 targets for 725 yards and a passer rating of 127.4. Unfortunately, Marson Lattimore and Marcus Williamscouldn’t repeat their other-worldly rookie seasons to make up for it.
29. CAROLINA PANTHERS
After somehow still playing at a high level in his 14th season in the NFL, Mike Adams had the wheels fall off in year 15. The almost 38-year-old safety had the lowest-graded full season of his career, allowing five touchdowns and a passer rating of 121.6 in his coverage. Mid-season addition Eric Reid ended the year as the highest graded member of the Panthers’ secondary, and that tells you all you need to know about this ranking.
30. DETROIT LIONS
He didn’t play much, but Teez Tabor torpedoed the Lions’ defense when he was on the field. His 29.9 coverage grade was the lowest in the NFL and on only 276 snaps, he allowed 22-27 catches for 371 yards, four touchdowns, and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.
31. OAKLAND RAIDERS
While the overall ranking certainly isn’t pretty for the Raiders, there’s still some reason for hope. Former first-round pick Karl Joseph earned his highest grade as a pro (74.5), while other former first-rounder Gareon Conley looked much improved down the stretch. He finished the season allowing a catch rate of only 54.0% and a passer rating of 72.8.
32. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
Richard Sherman’s presence could only do so much to prop up the league’s worst unit. The free agent corner only allowed 25 catches in 14 games this season, but injuries and a ton of busted coverages are why they still sit at the bottom. Eleven other players besides Sherman received at least 100 snaps in the secondary, and none graded higher than 66.7 overall.
NFL secondary rankings: All 32 teams after 17 weeks
BY MICHAEL RENNER
1. CHICAGO BEARS
No surprise here. The Bears’ secondary featured PFF’s first-team All-Prosafety Eddie Jackson and second-team All-Pro corner Kyler Fuller. What really separates them from the pack though is the lack of a weak link. Every single player that played at least 200 snaps in their secondary – Jackson, Fuller, Adrian Amos, Prince Amukamara, Bryce Callahan, and Sherrick McManis – all earned grades above 80.0.
2. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
The Patriots consistently get more out of their defensive backs than any team in the league. Their cornerback tandem this season of Stephon Gilmore(90.7 overall) and Jason McCourty (83.1) personifies that. Maligned at their last stops before New England, both put up the highest-graded seasons of their careers in 2018, combining to allow only 95 catches on 180 targets.
3. LOS ANGELES CHARGERS
Along with Chicago, the Chargers were the only other NFL team to put multiple members on the PFF All-Pro secondary. Desmond King II earned the first team Flex position for his work as the league’s best slot cornerback and Derwin James was second-team safety as a rookie. The scary thing is, that doesn’t even include Casey Hayward Jr., who just last year won PFF’s award for top coverage defender.
4. HOUSTON TEXANS
Houston is a defensive success story that should give everyone on this list hope. After plugging holes at safety with Tyrann Mathieu and Justin Reid over the offseason, one of the worst units in the league turned around to be one of the best. All four starters earned grades of 74.7 or above, while Kareem Jackson had a career year at 85.7 overall.
5. BALTIMORE RAVENS
You could argue no team in the NFL has more invested in their secondary with first-round picks at both starting corner positions and high-priced free agents at both safety positions as well as their nickel corner. That may also be the reason why their defense was so dominant in 2018. Marlon Humphreywas the highest graded of the bunch as he came on strong in year two. Humphrey allowed a catch rate of only 52.5% and only 464 yards on the season.
6. LOS ANGELES RAMS
While Marcus Peters grabbed a lot of the headlines for his up and down play this year, two other guys quietly had outstanding seasons for Los Angeles. John Johnson III is quickly making a name for himself as one of the best safeties in the league after picking off four passes and breaking up seven others this season. Nickell Robey-Coleman, on the other hand, still doesn’t get the respect he deserves as one of the most consistent slot corners in the league after earning an 82.6 overall grade this year.
7. CINCINNATI BENGALS
While the defense as a whole didn’t live up to their early-season hype, much of that was due to a linebacking corps that gave up more yards in coverage than any other in the NFL. Rookie Jessie Bates looks like he’ll be a stud in Cincinnati for a while after allowing a passer rating of only 59.9 in his coverage this year.
8. CLEVELAND BROWNS
Another team that gives hope to all the struggling secondaries out there. With the simple additions of Denzel Ward (79.0 overall) and Damarious Randall (72.7) along with a breakout year from Jabrill Peppers (77.6), the Browns secondary went from one that Gregg Williams blamed for not letting him call the coverages he wanted, to a top-10 unit.
9. MINNESOTA VIKINGS
They’re obviously still a solid secondary, but most in Minnesota had higher expectations than this. Much of the blame can be aimed towards their two biggest stars, as Xavier Rhodes and Harrison Smith took huge steps back from a season ago. Rhodes had a career-low grade after allowing a career-high catch rate (65.2%), and while Smith’s 79.7 grade this year was good, it came a year after his 91.8 overall grade was tops in the NFL.
10. BUFFALO BILLS
After a dominant rookie season, Tre’Davious White was once again stingy in year two. He was given the task of following around opposing number one receivers in seven separate games this year and still only allowed 357 yards and 30 catches for the entire season.
11. DALLAS COWBOYS
Byron Jones’ emergence as one of the league’s top cornerbacks was one of the crazier stories of the entire season. After spending the last two years at safety, Jones turned into a PFF first-team All-Pro in his very first year back at the position he played at Connecticut. He allowed only 37 of 69 targets to be completed and had 10 pass breakups on the year.
12. JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
No unit in the NFL disappointed more this season than the Jacksonville secondary. With all four starters returning and remaining healthy for the majority of the season, their fall from the top was inexplicable. Barry Churchearned a 50.4 overall grade before being cut late in the year, while Jalen Ramsey gave up almost 200 more yards than he did last season.
13. TENNESSEE TITANS
The Titans have paid a lot of money in recent seasons to fill out this secondary, but it’s their ability to identify talent in the draft that’s still carried them. 2016 third-round pick Kevin Byard was a second team PFF All-Pro safety while last year’s first rounder, Adoree’ Jackson, was the second-highest graded player in the secondary.
14. ATLANTA FALCONS
The Falcons were yet another victim of inexplicable player regression. Robert Alford allowed a catch rate that was over 12 percentage points higher than 2017, and he also allowed 175 more yards than he did a season ago. His 138.9 passer rating and 12 penalties were second-worst and worst in the league, respectively.
15. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
All things considered, I think the Colts are happy with ending up in the middle of the back this season. The Colts secondary accounted for a total of $11.2 million against their cap this season – a figure lower than 10 individual secondary players in the league this year.
16. NEW YORK JETS
Jamal Adams‘ career is off to a Hall of Fame-esque trajectory through two seasons. He was one of the league’s most feared defensive weapons this year and ended up as a PFF first-team All-Pro safety. Adams’ 44 total defensive stops and 22 quarterback pressures were both the most of any safety in the league.
17. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
After trading away their top cornerback and being without Eric Berry for the majority of the season, I think they’ll take 17th. The play of Steven Nelson was a big reason why. Giving up 825 yards as he did doesn’t sound great, but Nelson was targeted 113 times on the season – eight more times than any other player in the NFL. He allowed only 60 to be completed for a passer rating of 76.8.
18. SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
Even if the results weren’t horrible, the Seattle secondary sorely missed Richard Sherman this season. Their corners Justin Coleman (90.0 passer rating against), Tre Flowers (111.8), and Shaquill Griffin (100.4) all allowed at least 500 yards and 60-plus percent catch rate on the season.
19. PITTSBURGH STEELERS
It wasn’t pretty early in the season for the Steelers secondary, but they bounced back over the course of the season. Safety Sean Davis’ improvement was a big reason why. Davis’ 69.8 overall grade represented a huge jump over his 47.3 from a season ago when he was one of the lowest-graded in the NFL. He cleaned up his missed tackles as well going from 19 last year to 12 this season.
20. ARIZONA CARDINALS
The top-four of the Cardinals’ back end was solid enough, but it was the other corners they threw out there that were routinely the issue. Brandon Williams, David Amerson, and Leonard Johnson all earned grades under 60.0 for the season.
21. NEW YORK GIANTS
While this unit has lost a good amount of talent since their peak a couple of years ago, even the holdovers from that unit regressed mightily. Janoris Jenkins allowed a passer rating of 109.3 in his coverage this year while Landon Collins was even worse at 127.8.
22. WASHINGTON REDSKINS
Even with a career year from D.J. Swearinger (79.8 overall), the Redskins secondary still couldn’t overcome the injury to Quinton Dunbar. Fabian Moreau was thrust into more playing time, and he allowed a 65.8% catch rate and a 105.8 passer rating.
23. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
With how many injuries the Eagles suffered on the back end, it’s a minor miracle they are still 23rd. Fifteen different players received snaps in the Eagles secondary, with 12 of them getting at least 100. Malcolm Jenkins 83.3 coverage grade on 1,038 snaps was a big reason why things didn’t completely fall apart for Philadelphia.
24. DENVER BRONCOS
The No Fly Zone is no more. Chris Harris Jr. was still at the top of his game with an 86.0 overall grade, but Bradley Roby didn’t handle the transition to a full-time starter as well as John Elway had hoped. He allowed 807 yards, a 65.9% catch rate and a 117.3 passer rating in his coverage.
25. TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS
Maybe the only surprising thing about the Bucs ranking here is that it wasn’t lower. No player earned a grade of 70.0 or above this season, while Justin Evans had the highest graded at 67.6 overall. Everyone knew it wasn’t going to last forever for the 35-year-old Brent Grimes, and after allowing a career-high 116.3 passer rating this past year, it’s probably the end of a great career.
26. MIAMI DOLPHINS
Minkah Fitzpatrick’s rookie year was incredibly encouraging, although being among the league leaders with 10 penalties is something that should be cleaned up going forward. Fitzpatrick only allowed a catch rate of 56.5% and a passer rating of 69.0. The same cannot be said for Bobby McCain, who allowed a 73.5% catch rate and 120.7 passer rating, both of which were among the worst at the position in the NFL.
27. GREEN BAY PACKERS
While the Packers were almost guaranteed to get better from a season ago, jumping up only to 27th wasn’t what they had in mind. There’s still reason for hope though, as first-round pick Jaire Alexander flashed brilliance at times. His five pass-breakup performance against the Rams was one of the best performances from a cornerback all season.
28. NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
After Patrick Robinson went down for the year in Week 3, it thrust more playing time onto P.J. Williams‘ plate, and the young cornerback was nothing short of a liability. He allowed 58 of 78 targets for 725 yards and a passer rating of 127.4. Unfortunately, Marson Lattimore and Marcus Williamscouldn’t repeat their other-worldly rookie seasons to make up for it.
29. CAROLINA PANTHERS
After somehow still playing at a high level in his 14th season in the NFL, Mike Adams had the wheels fall off in year 15. The almost 38-year-old safety had the lowest-graded full season of his career, allowing five touchdowns and a passer rating of 121.6 in his coverage. Mid-season addition Eric Reid ended the year as the highest graded member of the Panthers’ secondary, and that tells you all you need to know about this ranking.
30. DETROIT LIONS
He didn’t play much, but Teez Tabor torpedoed the Lions’ defense when he was on the field. His 29.9 coverage grade was the lowest in the NFL and on only 276 snaps, he allowed 22-27 catches for 371 yards, four touchdowns, and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.
31. OAKLAND RAIDERS
While the overall ranking certainly isn’t pretty for the Raiders, there’s still some reason for hope. Former first-round pick Karl Joseph earned his highest grade as a pro (74.5), while other former first-rounder Gareon Conley looked much improved down the stretch. He finished the season allowing a catch rate of only 54.0% and a passer rating of 72.8.
32. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
Richard Sherman’s presence could only do so much to prop up the league’s worst unit. The free agent corner only allowed 25 catches in 14 games this season, but injuries and a ton of busted coverages are why they still sit at the bottom. Eleven other players besides Sherman received at least 100 snaps in the secondary, and none graded higher than 66.7 overall.