Yannick Ngakoue Not Returning
 

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...turn-to-colts/

I'd say I'm perfectly fine with this (I'd certainly disagree he was a "tremendous player for us") but all the same, it represents another failed attempt at getting a pass rusher and one that still hasn't been corrected.

No surprise there.

Quarterback and pass rusher are the two hardest things to find and the two things Ballard hasn't nailed yet. Pass rusher is even harder than quarterback in my opinion to find.

Would have been very surprising if we re-signed Yannick after signing Ebukam.

thank god

he was fucking terrible

I agree, he did nothing in my eyes, yes he got a few sacks, but most of those were not due to something special that he did himself and even Ben Banogu may have got the same production, if he was given the same chances. He wasn't creating anything close to havoc for offensive tackles, and was a complete liability against the run.

Looks like neither player involved in that trade stuck with their new team. Ya-Sin signed with the Ravens today.

https://twitter.com/Schultz_Report/s...59603707482112


From one of the Raiders beat reporters:

https://twitter.com/VicTafur/status/1653862540760461314

Bummer. I was hoping we'd bring Rock back. Although with how much we loaded up at CB in the draft suppose it makes sense that we didn't.

They nearly drafted a whole secondary. 4 DBs, the shortest one is 6'1", and all if them are fairly high end athletes even by NFL standards.

As I stated earlier we definitely loaded up at CB. But you can never have enough at CB, and playing too prominent of a role this season might be too much to ask for a 5th and 7th rounder. Also, I read that Brents is still recovering from a wrist injury and will have to play catch up in training camp.

If there's one thing Ballard is good at finding on Day 3, it's DBs. Half of the starting secondary for next season was picked in Round 6 or later, 60% if you want to count nickel as a staring position and UDFA Kenny Moore as a starter.

Very pleased we didn't bring Rock or Yannick back. They were ok and ok isn't good enough for Ballard and this team. They keep swinging for the fences with the draft. Do it enough times and you will eventually hit. Lets hope it was this year.

The Colts have a couple of young D linemen on the team, they need to step up

I thought Rock was becoming pretty good by the '21 season and that he would be a good fit in Bradley's system. It does make sense that they would go with the rookies at CB though since we're officially playing the long game after drafting Richardson.

Ngakoue finally found a new home - he is headed to Chicago.

He received a fairly good pay day although it is only a 1 year deal.


https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/sta...76354935377920

why would anyone pay this dude that much money? he is atrocious

His numbers look good, but I dont remember him as a game changer.

I remember a couple free runs and clean up sacks. He's not worth doubling, so he only has to beat a dude like 5-6 times all year and poof! Double digit sacks.

But he was never consistently collapsing the pocket or boring down on the QB. I want the QB to feel uncomfortable consistently more than I want 10 sacks over 17 games.

Dude is the king of empty stats. Good for him for being able to sucker NFL GMs into giving him money though.

If Ngakoue is worth $10.5 million then, for Christ's sake was does that make JT worth?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating singing JT to a contract extension until he can prove he's healthy and productive. But holy shit, Ngakoue produces absolutely nothing.

These positional values get nasty in comparisons like these. Cause you're right in that JT is a much better football player than Ngakoue.

Quick glance, it looks like this makes Ngakoue the 35th ranked EDGE in terms of dollars/year. If he was a RB, he'd be ranked 6th.

Apples and Oranges. It is so much more difficult to pass rush than to play running back it isn't even close. It takes years to learn your craft as a pass rusher, running backs not so much. Having said that Ngakoue isn't worth 10 million.

Just stop already. Ngakoue is not getting beaten up on every play, in fact, It looks like he tries to avoid contact. While the RB is getting hit more than once on virtually every snap.

I didn't realize the NFL paid by how many hits you took. Here I thought it was all about how hard it was to reproduce your production, but alas it is about taking hits.

Ngakoue gets 8-10 sacks for 10 million. If you could get 6-8 sacs with a mid round draft choice for what, maybe less than a million a year, you would be crazy to spend 10 million. But you can't get that production (usually) out of a rookie pass rusher but easily get it out any number of running backs. Not only that it is almost impossible to win without some kind of consistent pass rush. Titles are won by teams without anything close to a break away threat at running back all the time. Pass rushers are way more difficult to find than adequate running backs and is way way more important to winning against the quality of QBs we have to go through.

My point is that Ngakoue doesn't get consistent pass rush. He is getting sacks of the Eric Walden variety. Ngakoue's sacks are all of the cleanup, un- blocked or coverage variety sacks? He offers nothing in run support either.