Green Bay Packers: 3 Cost Effective Free Agent IDLs Still Worth Targeting

Kawann Short

The concern with Kawann Short is that over the last two seasons with Carolina, he has played in only five total games—missing time each year with two separate shoulder injuries. But before that, he was one of the more productive interior defensive linemen in football, doing so against both the run and the pass.

Short’s breakout season came in 2015 when he recorded 80 pressures and 14 sacks. Although his production would dip following that performance, he was still effective, tallying 88 total pressures and 18 sacks over the next two seasons. In 2018, Short’s production dipped a little more as he recorded 34 pressure and three sacks.

During that span, he would also rank in the top-15 among interior defensive linemen in run-stop percentage from 2016 to 2018, including finishing in the top-5 in two of those seasons.

Short is now 32-years old and coming off back-to-back season-ending injuries. I’m sure you’re sensing a theme here, which is that expectations with him should be tempered–just like with the rest of these free-agent options. First and foremost, the hope would be that he’d stay healthy, and perhaps a reduced role would help in that regard, and that we’d then see some of those flashes from years past.