The Opening Drive 11/20: Alex Wright Extension and Myles Garrett's Mind-Boggling Data
The Browns lock down the EDGE opposite their generational machine producing unheard of stats.
Well, the Browns finally found their midseason extension candidate and locked in the deal. Alex Wright is the choice for the annual move as the Browns fourth-year EDGE has asserted dominance over the role opposite Myles Garrett and is thriving in both phases.
The deal for Wright is a great example of why deals like this getting down before free agency are necessary for smart organizations. They have a baseline of what Wright can do and there is an eye for improvement throughout the deal. If Wright were to get to free agency you could expect a deal like this costing along the lines of 25-40% more based on recent examples. Keeping your young talent in-house is the best recipe for long-term success.
At a baseline Wright is an excellent run defender who anchors his edge with power and an ability to long-arm, shock-and-shed, and win with speed to disrupt the run game. It’s currently his best feature. He’s all physicality.
He’s far from a finished product as a pass rushers but he’s showing more each year. He’s starting to get better at his immense size at turning the corner with bend, and the hand combat parts of the position are beginning to click as well. While the pure pressure numbers aren’t where they need to be quite yet, he’s producing sacks when given the opportunity and he’s beginning to build comfort in winning the one-on-one battles he’s given due to the talent around him.
There’s no reason to think Wright is a finished product here as there is some expectation that he will become more consistent down-to-down with his pass rush productivity. That’s the bet here. I tend to think it will due to his natural length, commitment to the craft, and opportunity given across from the league’s best rusher. This is a deal Browns fans should feel good about in the midst of a rough season.
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Now let’s talk about the alien that is Myles Garrett and his 2025 season. We all know how special he is as a player and don’t for one second take that for granted despite the turbulent offseason relationship we all had. He’s doing generational things this year and he’s doing it despite the odds being stacked against him — and I’m not even talking about the double-team rate and whatever else teams try to do to stop him right off the snap. And trust me, they do plenty of things to gameplan around him.
Currently he has 15 sacks through 10 games. That in itself is madness but when you consider he’s doing this despite the Browns only holding a lead for 30% of defensive snaps it gets even crazier. The best pass rush opportunities come when the other team is trailing and in predictable pass situations. The EDGE can turn off the run responsibilities and simply focus on getting after the passer. This is when the best production occurs. The Browns defense has only seen 260 pass attempts, the fewest in the NFL this year across the board and despite that Garrett is currently on pace for 25.5 sacks across 17 games.
The league median for pass attempts faced is (roughly) 338, or 30% more than the Browns have faced. The production despite opportunity is jarring. In theory, if the Browns saw league average amount of pass plays, Garrett could be pacing for 33 sacks.
Now, taking this one step further, I got to thinking about Garrett’s lack of “advantage pass rush snaps” since coming into the league in 2017. Here’s the first piece of data.
Here’s a look at the most career sacks in games lost across NFL History.
Bruce Smith: 64.0 (131 losses)
Leslie O’Neal: 63.0 (108 losses)
Myles Garrett: 62.5 (75 losses)
Reggie White: 58.5 (88 losses)
*Individual sacks official since 1982
So, we’ve established Garrett does more despite the situation but I wanted to track snaps in game situations so I dug into TruMedia to sort this out. Check out first the amount of pass rush snaps Garrett has compared to his peers where his team is winning by seven or more points. It’s insane.
We all know how special Garrett is and his career pace to break records, but now imagine if he had the same volume of snaps where he could take advantage of the situation the way his peers have. There is no doubt this is the best player of his generation and anyone who thinks otherwise just doesn’t understand ball. Make sure to remind them of that fact.
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