With Proper Support Chris Jones Can Become the League's Best Edge

Photo Credit: Darren Yamashita (USA TODAY Sports)

How do you justify paying one employee nearly five hundred MILLION dollars over just ten years?

Easy, he’s a quarterback.

Men like Patrick Mahomes earn such a preposterous amount of money not just because they play football, but because of how much they impact the game of football. Every snap, every down, and every season is based on how effectively the players who wear numbers like 12 and 15 can impact the outcome of the game.

And how do you neutralize a half-a-billion dollar impact?

A dominant pass rush.

Luckily for the heart of Missouri, the Kansas City Chiefs quietly have an edge rusher of their own who is potentially on the cusp of entering that conversation of “best pass rusher” in the league.

If the Chiefs can find a way to keep Frank Clark on the roster, and he stays healthy and can return to form (and quite frankly, keep his nose clean) then watch out for the man who dons the No. 95 having a dominant year of rushing the quarterback and creating lots of havoc on the defensive line.

Chris Jones has been widely considered an elite defensive lineman for the last four years, evident by the consecutive Pro Bowl selections from his last two seasons. However, there is a definite distinction between being “elite” and being included in that top tier of players at your position, and Jones has a legitimate chance of reaching that level over the course of the 2021 season.

As productive as Jones has been on the defensive side of the ball for the Chiefs the last two years, it still feels like the bar was raised almost too high after his incredible 2018 campaign.

In addition to ranking third that year in sacks with 15.5, his season will forever be stamped with the still-NFLrRecord of 11 consecutive games with a sack, which he set from Week 5 through Week 16. What may appear like a dip in defensive production from that one great season actually goes beyond just one sum of numbers.

The simplest way to judge a defensive lineman’s contributions is the player’s sack total, and the casual fan may look at Chris Jones’ sack numbers from the ‘19 and ‘20 seasons and interpret those totals as merely “average”. Although the Chiefs best defensive lineman has failed to eclipse double-digits the last two years, a closer look at his peripheral numbers still show that he was incredibly effective at getting to the quarterback.

Going back to last year, Jones ranked only 13th overall in the NFL in total sacks with 7.5, half that of T.J. Watt’s league-leading 15. However, part of Jone’s stat line last year is a product of his position as an interior lineman, rather than lining up at the left defensive end spot like he was for most of 2018.

Last season, Jones also ranked 4th in the NFL in QB hurries with 16, and he ranked third overall in the entire league in quarterback pressures, an encompassing statistic that includes Hurries, QB knockdowns, and total sacks.

The only guys ahead of Chris Jones? The younger Watt brother led the league again with a total of 61. Aaron Donald and Joey Bosa tied for 2nd with 45.

Jones had 44.

In 2018, he had a total of 49 QB pressures and was awarded with more than 15 sacks that year. He only got 7.5 sacks last year, but the pressure on the quarterback was still there consistently.

Keep in mind that Jones played most of the year as the left defensive tackle. While we know that L.A.’s favorite man-child Aaron Donald is a freak of nature, typically it takes more time to generate a pass rush from a four-point stance, right up the middle. During his breakout year in 2018, he was mostly lining up as a Defensive End on the right side of the line, coming off the edge. Even still, his brute strength, lower balance, and hand-fighting skills allow him to be a Pro Bowl-caliber D-Tackle.  But his ability to get off the line at such great speeds and be on the quarterback at an elite rate, will always make him much more valuable to the defense as a Pass Rusher.

Much like RBIs in baseball, generating sacks is a statistic that is dependent on other players on your team and their performance on a play-by-play basis. Particularly for Chris Jones, the guy on the other end of Kansas City’s defensive line has a great impact on how opposing offenses will gameplan a way to contain him. And so far, that guy isn’t making it too difficult for o-lines to choose between which threat coming off the edge they need to double-team.

Frank Clark was such a consistent threat on the defensive side of the ball for years with the Seattle Seahawks, but his first couple seasons with the Chiefs have been somewhat uneven. Putting the off-the-field madness aside for now, Clark’s sack totals are average at best (8 in ‘19, 6 in ‘20) but his overall rate at getting to the quarterback has severely declined from just a few years ago.

In fact, out of 114 qualified players from last season, Clark ranked only 92nd in Pass-Rush Win Rating, with only 10.0%! Not quite what the Chiefs were expecting when they signed him to a $20 million contract.

Kansas City’s half-a-billion dollar man is worth every penny because of the magic he can spin with the pigskin in his hands. But Super Bowl LV proved that even Patty Mack can’t do much offensively if a dominant pass rush doesn’t give him time and space to breathe.

For the time being, guys like Donald, Chase Young, and T.J. Watt sit comfortable at the top of the list of most dominant pass rushers. But if Steve Spagnuolo can find a way to get more out of the Chiefs role players along that defensive line — and Andy Reid can keep Frank Clark out of the tabloids and onto the field — then Chris Jones might just be in for hell of a run in 2021.

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