“Teams don’t want to give up the big play,” Commanders
coach Ron Rivera says. “But it’s also about who you play.
If you’re playing Green Bay, you’re going to be a little
bit smarter about those things. I still think blitzing is a
valuable weapon.”
Rivera’s starting D-line is made up of f irst-round picks.
Teams have always needed pass rushers. It is not a trend-
specific position, like fullback or a thick-bodied box safety,
that cyclically becomes popular every few years. And yet,
there was something about athletic defenders who could
bend around the edge of a left tackle and whack the quar-
terback that seemed so much more essential now. Among
GMs and coaches at the combine, there was a sense of
helplessness when it came to f inding an immediate answer
at pass rusher.
“You just need guys to win one-on-one,” says one GM in
need of pass-rush help. “There aren’t that many of those
guys around.”JUST A FEW days before Super Bowl LVI, Bengals director
of player personnel Duke Tobin was trying to protect himself
from the Southern California sun, hiding beneath a pair
of sunglasses and a f lat-brimmed baseball cap as he stood
in the withering shade. He looked out at a few makeshift
podiums in the stands bordering the UCLA track and field
facility, where a core group of Bengals were doing inter-
views with reporters from all around the world. This was a
Super Bowl team he helped build, one that he felt conf ident
in at the beginning of the season. Internally, the Bengals
wondered why no one else saw their roster the way they did.
One major reason for their turnaround was Hendrickson,
signed from New Orleans the previous offseason, who logged
a career-high 14 sacks in his first year with the Bengals. The
2021 free-agent class was stocked with talented edge rushers,
but because of the pandemic the salary cap was projected
to shrink and most clubs shied away from spending money.
For Cincinnati, that meant a player such as Hendrickson,
who in 2022 would have commanded more than $20 million
per season, was landing closer to the $15 million range. Tobin
and his staff usually compile a list of targeted free agents
before handing them off to their coaches to cross-check.
“We put a value on a player: Here’s who he’s like; here’s
where we feel his dollar value should be,” Tobin says.
Because they didn’t deviate from their non-pandemic
process, the Bengals were prepared to capitalize on what
would become a massive market inefficiency. Hendrickson
received offers from a half dozen clubs, prayed on his
decision with a close network of friends and family, and
signed a contract that paid him about as much as a solid
No. 2 wide receiver.
Tobin, Bill Belichick in New England (Matt Judon,34 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
$13.625 million per season), Jon Robinson in Tennessee
(Bud Dupree, $16.5 million per season) and Joe Douglas of
the Jets (Carl Lawson, $15 million per season) all saw what
others could not—or perhaps what other owners would not
allow their general managers to see with their checkbooks
buried in some survival shelter. This was a deal of a lifetime.
“We thought certain markets would get hit hard with the
cap going down, but we didn’t think the premium markets
would get crushed,” says one general manager describing
the great edge-rusher heist of 2021.
There were the Patriots amid their post–Tom Brady
revival, collapsing pockets with three rushers, slingshot-
ting Judon off the edge somehow unblocked. There was
Hendrickson, wearing down the Chiefs snap by snap in the
conference title game, clobbering Mahomes and holding
K.C. to three second-half points in the upset.
Just before free agency, one general manager predicted
that edge-rusher salaries “are going to skyrocket.” He was
right. Last offseason’s sale turned out to be one-time only.
In early March there was Randy Gregory, a player with
career highs of six sacks and 29 pressures who has never
played 500 snaps in a season over his seven-year career, at
the center of a bidding war, landing $14 million a year from
Denver. There were the Dolphins paying $16.35 million
per year for 28-year-old Emmanuel Ogbah, following a
pair of nine-sack seasons. Crosby signed a new deal worth
$23.5 million per season, which is still $4.5 million below
T.J. Watt’s market-resetting $28 million per year deal signed
last summer. A couple of aging vets, 33-year-old Von Miller
($20 million in Buffalo) and 32-year-old Chandler Jones
($17 million in Las Vegas), landed larger deals than any
edge rushers in the 2021 free-agent class.
Because of the depth of this edge-rushing draft class,
those prices might have been slightly def lated. Many teams
are choosing to try their hand at the rookies—and the more
reasonable rookie wage scale—instead. If, for instance, the
Jaguars select Hutchinson or Thibodeaux with the first
pick, the player would receive a contract of $41 million over
four years ($10.3 million per year) with a fifth-year option
for the team. If, say, the Eagles (or a team acquiring one of
the three first-round picks owned by Philadelphia)—who
in March inked veteran pass rusher Haason Reddick, now
on his third team, to a three-year deal with $15 million
annually—were to select a pass rusher 16th, that player
is locked into a deal paying him $4.1 million per season
over four years.
This draft not only offers some intriguing pass-rush tal-
ent, arriving at a time when defenses need it most, it also
offers it at a severely discounted price.DRAFT PREVIEW20
22
BY GEORGE!
The Purdue pass rusher has a chance to
break into the top 10 on draft night.