nfl
Who are the NFL's best edge rushers? Execs, coaches and scouts help rank 2025's top 10
Discussion
- 1. Garrett
- 2. Watt
- 3. Parsons
- 4. Crosby
- 5. N Bosa
- 6. Hendrickson
- 7. Hutchinson
- 8. Will Anderaon
- 9. Danielle Hunter
- 10. Verse
You the real MVP
Wheres Dominique Robinson?!?!?!?!
Is this a Carmen Sandiego reboot?
So some GM had Trey Hendrickson unranked (i.e. outside the top 10)
How?
Who is this GM and what are his priorities? It must be someone who doesnt like explosive rushers who get to the QB without much support from the rest of the line, and instead prefers more plodding, clunky DEs that get to the QB more rarely.
I can sorta understand Hutchinson getting an unranked purely due to injury, and everyone after that can be justified, but I just cant square the Hendrickson one.
EDIT: just saw Bosa also got an unranked. Gotta be the same GM for sure.
Probably the Bengals GM
All after Crosby had an unranked
Because he's the DE version of the team he plays for - elite at one half of the game and flat out bad at the other. At best, hes a liability in the run game. Dont get me wrong, I think hes arguably the second-best pass rusher in the league. But how much does the defense as a whole suffer if they allow .5 a yard or more rushing on early downs?
Biased as a Vikings fan but Jonathan Greenard definitely belongs here. I'd put him in there over Hunter, and Anderson for sure.
He's in the Honorable Mentions.
Who?
The guy who had the 3rd most pressures in the league last year per PFF
Probably still shouldn't be on this list yet but he had a really stellar year for us and it's not a flex to be ignorant of that just because he's not a big name
You made up that player. That's weird
I had no idea Hutchinson and Verse were the same age
One of those weird things like Burrow being older than Lamar.
Or Trevor Lawrence being younger than Tyler Shough and only like 100 days older than Bo Nix
Lawrence (and Pitts) was the 2nd youngest player in his draft class with Sewell being less than a week younger.
Will Levis is older than Jordan Love, too. Some of these recent QB's have been real old.
NCAA gave all players an extra year because of COVID
I think we're gonna keep seeing more and more of this with NIL making it more attractive to stay in college. We'll still see the same amount of NFL-ready juniors declaring for the draft, but now there's gonna also be more older players getting drafted who broke out later in college that would have gone on to sell insurance if they were 10 years younger
Penei Sewell is younger than Hutchinson.
Yeah Verse was an older prospect
As long as he stays healthy, Hutch will be higher on this list in the following years. Kid is a superstar in the making.
Same with Verse, i feel like both of them might be top 5 after this season
He’ll be behind Garett only after a healthy season. Myles is all time.
Garrett is getting hold and if history is any guide, could face a sharp decline at any time.
All time in QB scares? Almost sacks?
QBs assaulted with a helmet.
Why do you say that like he hasn't averaged 15 sacks per season over the last four?
All time? He's 2nd to Watt in every important stat in their career. He only leads Watt in starts (which doesn't help his case...)
Except when you look at useful stats like pressure rates, average time to pressure, amount of double teams, amount of pressures without being blocked etc, and you realize watt is genuinely a step below garret in every way. Not to mention watt plays with a future HOF his entire career along with high smith a pro bowler and garret hasn’t had dick on his line his entire career.
Watt is a top 3 edge rusher of his generation and a future HOFer, he is still not better than Garrett.
Garret, to me, is in a league above Watt, so I'll start with that.
But Garret hasn't played with scraps. The supporting cast on the DLine for the Browns have basically all been at least average or above average starters. Za'Darius Smith, Dalvin Tomlinson, Shelby Harris, Jadeveon Clowney, Sheldon Richardson, Olivier Vernon, Larry Ogonjobi, Emmanuel Ogbah, Danny Shelton,
When compared to watt. I agree he’s had average starters, but to compare watt and garrets lines as anything close to equal is insane.
I hate the browns (organization not the fans) and this is accurate.
I didn't realize pressure rates, amount of double teams etc etc were so valuable. I have yet to see a single college prospect be selected based on these non-factors. Maybe try sacks, tackles, TFLs, forced fumbles, INTs etc.?
They are taken for these stats. Myles garret had 8.5 sacks in his junior year before declaring and still went #1 overall.
I don’t care that watt gets barely more sacks than Myles on double the pass rush attempts. That doesn’t make him better.
Garrett by every metric when put on the edge, has a much higher chance to no only get a pressure, but also a sack or fumble per snap he plays. That’s all that matters for edge rushers.
That’s why Garrett is the best… his pressure rate is WAY higher than everyone else, he is doubled teamed WAY more and it isn’t close, and yet he still succeeds even without a HOF DT and pro bowler edge on the other end…
Your inability to look past the most baseline stats that don’t actually give you a clear picture into their worth is on you. And it’s why whenever someone with genuine football knowledge says watt isn’t better than Garrett, you’ll keep scratching your head and crying.
Ok - Garrett is the better "pressure per sq ft guy". Great. I prefer productivity i.e. making plays you know tackles for loss, INTs - plays that stop drives, turn the ball over, etc. etc.
Right I prefer the guy who when he’s on the field will play better. You just want the guy who despite given 2x the attempts of garret last year barely manages the same stats lol
I would like to hope GMs aren't drafting players off box score stats...
They go off of film. And if you read the article the reason why 70% of the NFL execs picked Garrett 1st was because he has such a huge impact on their gameplan and what they can run and how they can line up.
At some point the Steelers will get a pass rusher whose true value lies in their down to down impact, and the rest of us will happily watch as you try to dig yourself out of the anti-advanced stats hole you’ve dug yourself into.
So how are tackles, TFLs, sacks, forced fumbles, fumble recoveries and INTs useless? In what world? Tell me how college prospect OLB and DEs are evaluated. I'll wait.
Tell me how college prospect OLB and DEs are evaluated. I'll wait.
Uh well they're evaluated by watching the tape, not watching box scores.
They're not useless. They're just not the best way of measuring an edge rusher's impact. When TJ tied the sack record in '21 he had a sack on 3% of plays. If you're only looking at the box scores, exactly how are you evaluating those other 97%?
He tied the sack record is how I evaluate his play. Taking about rates - TJ has had more impact plays with fewer total starts than Garrett.
Gambles
Sure would be nice to have a top 6 Edge
Counter point: no
If we can’t have them nobody can!
Masochist
Eh there’s been some good times, not many but some.
I hope to one day see a Falcon in a list like this before I die, but I’m not counting on it
Chop Robinson getting votes makes me feel good. No big surprises or any complaints about the top 10. Pretty good list.
Uh oh, Myles Garrett ranked ahead of TJ Watt. Reddit isn’t gonna like this.
You watch it or I will take your helmet off and swing it at you.
The mods are hiding a deleted comment where Vasospasm_ calls Lamar Jackson a choke artist
Thanks for letting me know
Garrett's hold on the No. 1 ranking is firm; he earned at least 70% of the first-place votes in back-to-back years.
Time to hear why Myles being the unquestioned top ranked Edge means all the executives don’t know ball
Maybe because all but 2 of them passed on TJ and nobody passed on Garrett. It’s hard to own bad decisions.
That was the 2017 draft how many executives then do you think are still around for this exercise and who also would let a draft decision from 8 years ago affect their current rankings?
What do you think they were doing in 2017? They were either GMs or doing the player evaluations for a GM.
Most of them wouldn't have any final authority, and many of them were teams with different needs anyway. It's just an absurd line of thinking that this weird hidden bias is emerging almost a decade later on a ranking. There is no real reason to believe it, it's nonsense. Think about it for any length of time ....
The bias wasn’t hidden, I’m going with the less-extreme assumption that they also did not have Watt as a HOF talent in their evaluation and continue to rank him below Garrett. It’s fine if you want to believe they were all overruled.
Everybody going to argue about who should go where, but we can all agree that the Texans have the best edge rusher duo.
Also Jared Verse had a great rookie year, but he’s not top 10 yet, Bonitto got snubbed.
we can all agree
Except for PFF who wouldn't even put them in the top 3 edge rush duos.
Verse is an interesting case, because he didn't have incredible production, but it seems like everyone who watches film is in love with the guy. It'll be interesting to see in the coming years if he really does have something special that just hasn't shown up in the numbers yet.
Advanced stats love Verse. He scored very highly on pass rush and run defense metrics.
I really hope and pray Penix is actually our guy or I’m gonna be mad as hell about passing on Verse from the day it happened until I die
He barely missed a handful of sacks and had like 3 called back. He had a year that reminded me of Hutchinson's rookie year. Hutch tightened up on his pursuits in the pocket and started finishing sacks more often and I see Verse doing the same going forward
If you look beyond the Pro Football Reference stat sheet, Verse had one of the 3 best rookie seasons we've seen from an edge rusher in the past decade.
Jared Verse is absolutely top 10. Bonitto is really good but youre just looking at sack production… he’s a DPR
Definitely the best bookends in the biz right now.
No one is ever going to rank a DPR on one of these lists, and they shouldn’t.
He is top 10, why are you pulling this out of your ass.
Nik Bonitto had 9 more sacks, 5 more TFL, and 1 more INT compared to Verse, and was an All Pro
Do you value ~18 more tackles over all that?
the rams also had the fewest pure pass rush downs in the league at like 82, the broncos had the most at something like 110. i don't think it's unreasonable to say that bonitto benefits a ton from the cohesiveness of the rest of the line and defense as a whole around him in a way that verse does not, and to adjust expectations based on that. if you swapped them, do you really think bonitto would've put up better numbers than verse did?
Haven’t heard this stat, thanks.
I value him being a better pass rusher and run defender on a down-to-down basis. He has less sacks yes, but he also had a significant amount of more pressures.
4.5 sacks is Top 10?
Yes, when you collapse the pocket that consistently against elite tackle talent.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R_TubtacGQs&t=1129s&pp=ygUMSmFyZWQgY2Vyc2Ug0gcJCcEJAYcqIYzv
That’s fair, but still, you got to learn how to finish.
Reddit ball knowledge moment right here. Verse is top 10. His lackluster sack total overshadowed a season where he played like a DPOY finalist.
Yes! Not only the quantity of pressure but getting them against amazing tackles.
im taking watt and highsmith 10/10 times
First round picks are kind of cool
We get two, that's 1. 2. more than we usually have, lets trade them for old Lamarcus Joyner /s
Seems about right. I'm surprised to see Crosby ranked ahead of Bosa considering Bosa's sustained dominance. Also, despite how good Verse looked as a rookie, I'm hesitant to put him ahead of guys like Josh Hines-Allen and even Khalil Mack. I'd like to see one more year from him before I'd rank him ahead of proven vets like those two.
This would be my list, personally:
Myles Garrett
TJ Watt
Micah Parsons
Nick Bosa
Maxx Crosby
Aidan Hutchinson
Trey Hendrickson
Will Anderson
Danielle Hunter
Josh Hines-Allen
People love Crosby's endurance, which is fair. He's been a better run defender than Bosa, while Bosa has been a better pass rusher.
If what we saw from TJ last season is what we're getting from him in the future, I'd honestly start considering pushing him down the list. His big thing has always been that his booms are bigger than his busts as a pass rusher, which was the argument for him over guys like Parsons, Garrett and Bosa's down-to-down impact.
See, I thought Bosa was considered one of the top run defenders in the league. I could've sworn I read somewhere recently that he was like #2 or #3 in run defense grade last season. I know Maxx is an exceptional run defender as well but he's coming off a bit of a down year which is why I was surprised to see him ahead of Bosa. Bosa doesn't really have down years. Even last year which was considered one of his worst seasons he was still one of the highest graded edge players in the league.
We're splitting hairs, though. Both of them are amazing players.
Maxx is one of the 3 best run defending edges in the league, alongside Khalil Mack and TJ Watt. Bosa rounds out the top 5. I'd rank Bosa higher than him overall because I think Bosa is a better pass rusher, but Maxx is better in the run game.
Is trey ranked to low on here or am I crazy?
Someone else says they are including run defense. His stats on run defense are not that great. Probably why he is a little lower.
No, 6 is fine. I don't think it would be completely crazy to have the Crosby/Bosa/Hendrickson orders changed, especially after Maxx was hurt last year, but I think I'd have Hendrickson at the bottom of it still.
I think he’s hurt by the fact that others were more well known from the start of their careers. Him being 6 isn’t too far off (although I would have him better than Bosa and Crosby), but the fact that someone didn’t have him in the top 10 is pretty ridiculous
Edit: in terms of run defending, I agree Trey is definitely worse, but in pure pass rushing he’s proven himself to be elite with 35 sacks the past 2 seasons and 70.5 sacks in the last 5.
Bosa and Crosby are both on par with Hendrickson as pass rushers, and they're both significantly better run defenders.
Correct. Trey could honestly be considered a net-negative on run defense.
Also interesting - he had only ONE sack when the Bengals were either trailing or tied last year. 1 of 17.5. Now you could argue it’s harder to rack up sacks in this scenario as teams are more likely to run the ball or play it safe, but when Watt had 19 in 2023, 11 of those were while the Steelers were trailing/tied.
He simply doesn’t affect the game to the same degree as the top 5 in this list. And I love Trey - he’s pretty easily the best FA signing in Bengals history.
A couple of guys id like to shout out that aren't here: Johnathan Greenard, Will McDonald, Travon Walker, Laiatu Latu. They all popped off the screen when I would watch those teams play.
Will McDonald is such a fun watch.
Maxx Crosby
Yes
Greenard should be in the top 10 after last year. He isn’t as well known as some of the big names. He got an honorable mention, but his production was super good last year.
Odd choice to not include Crosby in the picture....
Gets us morons to click on it to make sure they didn't miss our boy
Reddit not understanding how incredible Jared Verse was 😕
I think his game is more appreciated when you turn in the film. He certainly flashes in games but only when you turn on the film do you see how he consistently wins.
His bull rush is already one of the best in the game, if not the best.
One of the only guys in a while to flat knock Jordan Mailata around. By no means does that alone make him a star... but shows his potential at least.
And as a Philly fan, man I love how he represented after shit talking us in the playoffs. Good showing.
I agree 100%. Most people here don't rewatch tape (which is fine), but the film shows a dominant edge rusher. The stat watchers downvoted the one guy who actually understands Verse's game. If I was a DPOY voter he would've been in my top 5. These people shouldn't be surprised when he has 15 sacks next year.
bro we get it; we are as you said "Reddit ball knowledge moment" if we don't like verse as much as you do. You don't have to keep defending the guy like you are his dad or something
Think I needed to hear this. Can't let social media bother me so much.
Well he's not terror Armstead
Am I missing something, Nik Bonnito was third in sacks had a pick six. 2 FF and 1 FR. at one point could be argued to be the dark horse DPOY.. And hes not top 10?
Who are you removing from the list to put Bonnito on?
Verse
Easily verse I’m not even asking for top 5 just crazy to me that he’s put out of top 10
Had a good rookie season but let’s pump the breaks
It’s true, please watch this amazing video which details his game.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R_TubtacGQs&t=1129s&pp=ygUMSmFyZWQgY2Vyc2Ug0gcJCcEJAYcqIYzv
So you are upset that he was ranked 11th instead of 10th?
according to them it could be 12 and I wouldn't say upset. Just confused that a player who played great last year is for some reason left off the list for someone who at most had a few more tackles then him.
it could be 12… for some reason left off the list
It’s a 10 person list. The difference between 12 and 10 isn’t much.
Verse is a way better run defender than Bonitto and not too far behind as a pass rusher. His inability to finish in the backfield overshadows a seasons where he played like a 14.5 sack player, not 4.5.
Set the rookie record for hypothetical sacks.
Exactly, pure stats are all that matter. That's why Patrick Surtain wasn't even really a top 10 DB last year with only 4 int.
I would argue Kamren Kinchens is a real DPOy because he had 4 picks and a FF /s
Pressures please explain to me how you hate actual stats and then have Surtain on your team he's the epitome of stats don't tell the whole story
[deleted]
Run defense is included
Part of why Parsons isn’t 2nd id wager based on description
[deleted]
Based on the rankings I think we can infer that it isn’t 2024 production-based and it isn’t solely pass rushing. If we’re ranking pass rushing only there’s a lot of shuffling needed after Garrett.
They mention run defense in the write-ups for 5 different players.
Which production metric from 2024 do you think this list is strictly based on?
[deleted]
I do not believe it's just based on 2024 production pass rush production. Hendrickson at 6 when he led the league in pressures and sacks would be one piece of evidence.
[deleted]
I would not assume that. TJ Watt was very low on the win rates this year. I do not believe this is based strictly on any 2024 stats at all. The article claims it's a poll of league personnel and their opinions on players, and I don't see any reason to believe that's not the case.
In the description for Bosa they literally reference him being a true “eye test” [and advanced stats] pass rusher, so yeah it’s just perception.
It’s not a list based off 2024 production. Crosby wouldn’t even be ranked if that were the case (not a knock on him as a player, he just got hurt and wasn’t as good).
Hutch seems pretty low even with his injury. He was essentially the odds on favorite for DPOY by stats for three weeks after his leg fell off.
Saints looked like SB contenders early on. Can't take a small sample and extrapolate it over the season
and Hutch lined up against backups and 3rd string OTs last season. Only faced one starting OT before his leg injury. A good EDGE player should produce against bad OTs, which he did.
Hutch is better than Crosby
Woah there pal
We'll see who puts up better numbers next year. My money's on Hutch
using odds favorite for awards 3 weeks into a 18 week season as some kind of argument is legit hilarious.
I like how they say that Micah's stats all make a case for #1, and then outline all the ways he should be #1, but never explain why he isn't #1.
Not that I'm trying to fight here guys, just saying that's kind of odd writing.
His run D needs work though
Not the case for the other guys in the Top 5 imo
When the category is "edge rushers", I assume they're only referring to pass rushing.
If they were including run defense in their rankings, it should say "edge defenders".
“Edge defender” is what PFF calls them, but everyone else uses some version of edge/edge rusher to group 3-4 OLBs and 4-3 DEs.
I'm not sure if I remember anyone ever calling the position “Edge defender”
PFF has done so for a long time, but they’re the only ones. Just like they call interior defensive linemen (4-3 DTs and 3-4 DEs) “DI” for defensive interior. But yeah everyone else calls them edge rushers/edges and DTs and assumes people just know what they mean at this point.
[deleted]
Crosby's 324 pressures since 2019 are more than any other player......by 40 pressures. What if he had at least a single top30 CB some year
ESPN makes these lists to create controversy and get clicks.
Maxx should be number 1. He's the only defensive pressure Raiders have. He's constantly being double teamed. And still, year after year, wreaks havoc. I will die on this hill.
His double team rate is still lower than Garrett
He's just like me frfr