Packers Rashan Gary Not Listed as Top-10 Edge Rusher by ESPN

As part of their season preview series over at ESPN ($$), they are going position-by-position and ranking the top-10 players among each group. Most recently were the edge rushers, and the Packers’ Rashan Gary was nowhere to be found.

Voting for these lists is more than 50 league executives, scouts, coaches, or players. As the ESPN article would note, the voters provided their top-10 edge rushers, and the players were ranked based on how many overall votes they received, along with their average ranking among the voters, as well as by film study, interviews, and research.

The end result was a top-10 list that included TJ Watt (1), Myles Garrett (2), Nick Bosa (3), Joey Bosa (4), Maxx Crosby (5), Von Miller (6), Chandler Jones (7), Brian Burns (8), Khalil Mack (9), and Cameron Jordan (10).

In addition to not being among the top-10, Gary wasn’t even among the five players who were honorably mentioned either. Instead, he was all the way at the bottom of the page in the “also receiving votes” category with Josh Allen and Robert Quinn.

With speed, power, and a tenacious work ethic, Gary is coming off a breakout 2021 season that included recording 87 total pressures and 12 sacks, including the playoffs, according to PFF ($$). There were also 10 games where he posted at least five pressures, four of which he had seven or more.

Gary led the Packers in each of those categories, but he also ranked among the best across the NFL.

Through the regular season, Gary had logged 81 pressures which were the second most among all edge rushers in football, behind only Maxx Crosby. By PFF’s pass-rush productivity metric — which measures a player’s efficiency in getting after the quarterback — Gary would rank third, behind Trey Hendrickson and TJ Watt.

Perhaps Gary was left off this list because the 2021 season was his first where he saw that level of production–although it was also the first where he was given that level of opportunity after playing behind Preston Smtih and Za’Darius Smith during the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

Or maybe Gary wasn’t ranked among the top-10 because his 10 regular season sacks were tied for 17th–still impressive, but not at the top like he is in the other categories. Although sacks oftentimes draw much of the attention, as former Packers OLB Coach Mike Smith said, he will take pressures over sacks any day of the week.

"“I care about pressure, affecting the quarterback, that’s the No. 1 thing. I’ll take a guy that does his job play after play after play after play, being consistent and have zero sacks, but does his job and affects the quarterback,” Smith said via Packers Wire."

With that said, Jeremy Fowler, who put together the article for ESPN, mentioned that these rankings are about the 2022 season specifically–who are the best edge rushers at this moment? These rankings are not a five year projection or about past achievements.

So by this criteria, in the eyes of the voters at least, Gary fell short. However, he was one of the most productive edge rushers in the game last season, along with being a player who is still very much ascending. My guess is that by the end of the year, most will look back and call him a top-10 player at this position.

"“If anything, it made me hungry,” Gary said when discussing his 2021 season via Packers.com. “It made me go back, watch film, see what I put on tape, see areas of my pass rush, my run defense and things that I could improve on.“It just made me hungrier (to) pick apart my game and make me a better player for this team.”"