*Check out the full 2024 offseason guide for insight on other coaching and roster moves for the Eagles.*
With Josh Sweat entering the final year of his contract, it’s important that we review his 2023 season (and 2022) to see if re-signing Sweat would be the right move. The Eagles are likely to re-sign one of Haason Reddick or Josh Sweat, and who they decide to re-sign will be an important decision.
AN UNDERWHELMING YEAR
After a career year in which Josh Sweat racked up 11 sacks, he followed that up with an underwhelming 6.5 sack campaign. Sweat’s pressure rate of 11.3% was not far off his 2022 rate of 11.9%, but his sack rate was down from 3.3% to 1.2%.
Haason Reddick was able to rack up double digit sacks for the fourth year in a row, and he had a pressure rate just slightly above Sweat at 11.9%. Still, Reddick’s pressure rate was 53rd out of 113 qualifying edge rushers. Sweat was 60th.
Both edge rushers had a down year compared to their 2022 seasons, but to be fair, I wouldn’t put most of the blame on them. The back seven of this defense had no impact players. As the season went on and with the defensive coordinator change, the defense’s communication crumbled and missed assignments shot up. Add to that, the interior of the Eagles defensive line had trouble complementing the rush of Reddick and Sweat, so pressures that turned into sacks last year often didn’t come to fruition.
I believe that if the Eagles had better rush lane integrity across the front and better coverage on the back end, Sweat and Reddick would’ve had better seasons.
SWEAT vs REDDICK
Sweat took on a lot of the blame compared to Reddick, since Reddick was able to put up solid sack numbers. But we should go beyond the surface stats to see if we can get a better picture of the situation. I don’t want to be divisive and start a Sweat vs Reddick debate, but considering the Eagles are likely going to have to choose between re-signing one of the two, you have to compare them.
Take a look at the graphic below. It is showing the tackles each primarily lined up against and their PFF pass blocking grade. I always advise people to take PFF grades with a grain of salt, but it helps show us the level of competition each went up against.
It was quite comical when I went back and charted who each pass rusher was primarily facing off against. Sweat had to rush against a star-studded cast that included multiple players that are likely to be Hall of Famers. He faced off against two All-Pro and likely Hall of Fame tackles in Trent Williams (PFF pass block rank 12) and Tyron Smith (twice, pass block rank 1) and another Pro Bowler in Dion Dawkins (pass block rank 20). When all is said and done, he’ll likely have faced off against another Pro Bowler in Tristan Wirfs (pass block rank 5). Andrew Thomas (pass block rank 9) could earn a trip to Orlando, though the 2022 All-Pro only played 10 games this season. Charles Leno (played twice, pass block rank 19) is also a former Pro Bowler, and though he probably won’t make the team this year, had a very good season.
Reddick, on the other hand, faced off against only one player that has ever made the Pro Bowl – Brian O’Neill (pass block rank 25), who was selected to the Pro Bowl once in 2021.
The talent discrepancy that these two players faced on a down to down basis was huge. The average ranking of the tackles that Sweat faced was 25. Reddick’s was 52. That doesn’t account for the players that didn’t play enough snaps to qualify (back up players), but that would’ve only dropped Reddick’s average more since he faced off against one more player that didn’t qualify to be ranked.
I’m not saying that Sweat is better than Reddick, but Sweat faced the Monstars of left tackles while Reddick got to tee off against a lot of below average pass blockers. I don’t think we should be all that surprised that Sweat didn’t achieve the same sack numbers as Reddick.
Reddick and Sweat flipped sides a few times throughout the season. One notable instance was during the game against the Cowboys in week nine. Sweat struggled most of the day against Tyron Smith. He rushed off the right side against Terence Steele (pass block rank 77) 12 times and generated four pressures, including a huge sack with 27 second left in the game.
He also had another pressure on a bootleg, but I didn’t count that as Steele wasn’t blocking him. And speaking of pressures on bootlegs, Reddick has the benefit of rushing on the offenses right side – where teams with right-handed quarterback are more likely to roll out to on bootlegs. He gets a lot more opportunities to generate pressures on those unblocked looks compared to Sweat.
This isn’t just relevant to this season as well. Take a look at the pass block ranks of the tackles they primarily faced off against last year as well.
Again, we see a huge discrepancy in talent faced. The average rank of tackles that Sweat faced last year was 30. For Reddick, it was 50. Since Reddick has been in Philadelphia, Sweat has faced a much more difficult road.
That’s not Reddick’s fault. Team’s generally put their best pass blocker at left tackle instead of right tackle to protect the QBs blindside. Ideally, you’d like to see Sweat win a few more of those matchups, but the fact of the matter is that All-Pro caliber tackles just don’t give up very many sacks or pressures, even when facing off against other All-Pro caliber rushers.
What this tells me is that Sweat is a very good pass rusher that will beat average to good players consistently, but he’s not a guy that’s going to beat very good or elite tier players a lot. And to be honest, there’s really about three guys in the league that can do that. Reddick isn’t one of them either.
QUALITY OF PRESSURE
Sack and pressure totals only tell part of the story. The quality of those sacks and pressures matter to, especially when it comes time for contract negotiations.
Check out my article I wrote questioning whether Haason Reddick is elite or not. It’s important to understand, as not every pressure is equal. I used Brandon Thorn’s True Pressure Score (TPS) and True Sack Rates (TSR) that he has charted since 2020 to figure out which edge defenders have truly been the most dominant rushers.
If you’re unfamiliar with Thorn’s TPS and TSR rankings, he basically goes through the top 50 or so leaders in sacks and pressures each season and assigns a grade to their sack/pressure. Here are the grade criteria:
Rare High Quality (RHQ) – Winning a 1-on-1 rep over a very good or elite pass blocker. The win has to be a result of the pass rushers skill or athletic ability. Think wins over Lane Johnson, Penei Sewell or Andrew Thomas.
High Quality (HQ) – Winning a 1-on-1 rep that is the result of the pass rushers skill or athletic ability.
Low Quality (LQ) – These are plays that require no skill or pass rush moves to generate a pressure or sack. Think when a player is unblocked or the QB runs into the area the defender is already occupying (such as a bootleg).
Coverage/Cleanup (C/C) – Sacks that are a result of the coverage forcing the QB to hold on to the ball for a long time or a missed sack from a teammate. Note, coverage/cleanup grades are only counted for sacks.
So let’s take a look at Sweat and Reddick’s scores. Note, Sweat didn’t qualify for Thorn’s rankings for sacks in 2023 or pressures in 2022, so I went back and rewatched every one of his sacks (2023) and pressures (2022) and assigned scores.
By using this method, we can see how often Sweat and Reddick are winning more often via skill, who is winning more often via scheme and who is beating elite competition most often. Thorn has also added a Pass Rush Quality Ranking (PQR). This takes all of the HQ and RHQ snaps and divides them by the amount of LQ and C/C snaps. Doing this helps give us a better view of who is generating their sacks and pressure on their own merit compared to those generating more based on scheme and unblocked opportunities. A PQR score of 1 indicates a pass rusher is getting as many HQ wins compared to LQ wins.
One thing is clear, Sweat is getting a lot more of his pressures on his own merit. Since Sweat and Reddick have played together, Sweat has 66 total RHQ or HQ wins vs 56 for Reddick. Reddick has also had more pass rush snaps over that span as well.
Reddick wins on his own a lot too, but he is also put in better position to get low quality pressures compared to Sweat (75 vs 46). Remember the unblocked bootlegs we discussed earlier? Reddick greatly benefits from those. Over the past two seasons, Reddick has been moved around the line of scrimmage more often to run different types of stunts as well.
Reddick also doesn’t have a rare high-quality win in the four years that Thorn has charted. Now a big factor in that is that Reddick hardly rushes against the best tackle a team has, but you would still expect Haason to have beat a very good or elite level pass blocker at some point.
WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN
The consensus is that Reddick is a better pass rusher than Sweat, and while I agree, I think they’re a little closer than most people imagine. Especially when you add in the context of the competition they’re going against.
Now, I think Reddick is a better run defender, but that’s mostly due to the fact that Sweat has a bad habit of getting too far up field and creating vertical seams for teams to exploit. When he’s not doing that, he’s a good run defender. And Reddick is a more versatile player as well due to his ability to drop in coverage.
This context is important as Reddick is likely to command a much larger contract than Sweat, despite being about two and a half years older than him. Reddick is probably going to get somewhere between $20-25M in AAV. I imagine Sweat will get somewhere around $15M.
If Sweat was afforded the opportunity to rush against the lower tier pass rushers that Reddick has, what would or perspective of him be? How would we feel about Reddick if he had to go against the gauntlet of left tackles that Sweat has faced? I mean, think about the fact that Reddick’s pressure rate was just 0.7% better than Sweat’s this season, despite the fact that he faced a bunch of below average pass blockers.
In the end, Sweat had a disappointing 2023 campaign. But keep the context in mind. If I’m Josh Sweat’s agent, I’m making sure that the Eagles front office is reminded of that as well.
