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The challenge of turning Bryce Huff into an every-down player with the Eagles originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The Eagles didn’t sign Bryce Huff to a three-year, $51 million contract to only rush the passer. When you get a contract like that, you better be more than a one-dimensional player.
Which Huff has never been.
In his first four seasons, Huff was almost exclusively a pass rusher. He played 1,303 defensive snaps with the Jets, and according to Pro Football Focus only 370 of them were on running plays.
So he averaged 24.1 snaps per game and only 6.9 were against the run.
He was very productive on those pass-rush snaps, especially in his 10-sack breakthrough season last year. But now he’s got to be an every-down player, and nobody knows if he can do it.
“I do think he has the talent to do what we want him to do,” new Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said. “It’s just he’s got to get familiar with doing it. So it will be a work in progress.
“Does he look like he can do it today? No. I do think eventually he will. He’s taken the challenge on very well.”
Huff clearly has some work to do.
The analytics say Huff struggled playing the run last year. Pro Football Focus – which you always take with a grain or two of salt – gave him a lofty 86.8 pass-rush grade last year, which ranked 10th out of 110 edge rushers who played at least 300 defensive snaps, but a 48.0 run defense grade (on 134 rushing plays), which ranked 100th.
For the sake of comparison, Brandon Graham had a 72.1 run defense grade last year, Haason Reddick 63.7 and Josh Sweat 54.2.
Huff had a run defense grade of 64.9 in 2022 but played just 16 run snaps. He was at 46.6 on 99 run defense snaps in 2020 and 45.5 on 121 snaps in 2021.
There’s no question Huff is an elite pass rusher. But he bristled at the notion that he can’t play the run.
“If you watch my film, I’ve been physical in the run,” he said after practice Thursday. “I played a lot of run (defense). I’ve got…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/challenge-turning-bryce-huff-every-123533628.html
Author : NBC Sports Philadelphia
Publish date : 2024-07-26 12:35:33
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