What grades from Pro Football Focus did the current group of Jacksonville Jaguars’ defensive ends receive for their performances last season?
Since the NFL draft ended, GM James Gladstone has invested heavily into bolstering the team’s defensive end depth. This includes signing Emmanuel Ogbah, Dawuane Smoot, and Dennis Gardeck.
While we know that Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker will be leading the way here, defensive end is a heavily rotated position group with four or even five players seeing snaps on a weekly basis. This puts a premium on depth, which is something that the Jaguars have been lacking production-wise in recent seasons.
Before these three veteran additions were made, the defensive end unit behind Hines-Allen and Walker consisted of Myles Cole, who has just 135 career snaps under his belt, and a few UDFA signings.
“You want, we talked about it the other day, waves of maybe some different types of rushers at times,” Liam Coen said of the defensive end depth. “When you’re playing in the trenches specifically, when you come in and maybe you’re a UDFA or a rookie in general, that size, that strength, that speed, especially in the trenches, is different for anybody.
“So there’s always a curve, there’s always going to be a learning curve and physical growth curve that is going to occur. But getting some of those guys that have established themselves in this league and played meaningful snaps, I think will just help us in times of crisis and just to be a little bit more consistent in some way, knowing that we’re pretty young as a team in general.”
Now, as always, when it comes to PFF’s grading system, I always want to add the caveat that this metric is far from the be-all end-all when it comes to evaluating a player’s performance. It is one tool out of many that are out there and should be treated as such.
For some context around these metrics, here is a look at PFF’s grading system to provide some context behind the numbers:
- 90.0+: Elite
- 80-89.9: High quality
- 70-79.9: Good
- 60-69.9: Above average
- 50-59.9: Average
- 40-49.9: Below average
- 39.9 or less: Poor
Alright, now let’s dive in.
Josh Hines-Allen
PFF grade: 82.7
Hines-Allen was still one of the more productive defensive ends in football last season, posting 63 pressures and nine sacks.
Travon Walker
PFF grade: 68.2
Like Hines-Allen, Walker was top 20 in pressures created and he also recorded his second consecutive double-digit sack season. Walker’s grade against the run was 69.2.
Dawuane Smoot
PFF grade: 56.3
With the Bills in 2024, Smoot totaled 16 pressures and two sacks over 246 pass rush snaps. Most of his opportunities came in pass rush situations.
Emmanuel Ogbah
PFF grade: 59.7
After totaling 35 combined pressures and seven sacks between 2022 and 2023, Ogbah had 33 pressures and six sacks in 2024. Ogbah’s run defense grade took a big jump as well.
Dennis Gardeck
PFF grade: 72.0
With the Cardinals, Gardeck played 206 defensive snaps in 2024, logging 12 pressures and three sacks. He had a run defense grade of 62.8. In 2023, Gardeck posted 42 pressures.
Myles Cole
PFF grade: 34.0
Cole played 135 snaps as a rookie. He had one quarterback pressure and a run defense grade of 38.4.
Ethan Downs
PFF college grade: 78.5
Downs played both the run and the pass regularly. His run defense grade was 75.3 and he accumulated 25 pressures with three sacks.
BJ Green II
PFF college grade: 78.3
Green totaled 56 pressures in 2023 and 43 pressures in 2024. He was one of the PFF’s highest-graded pass rushers this past season.
Danny Striggow
PFF college grade: 68.9
Striggow had 25 pressures, six sacks, and a run defense grade of 75.7.
This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: Jaguars PFF grades for Josh Hines-Allen, Travon Walker, other DEs