Bryce Huff has been less than zero

Bryce Huff has been an absolute dud. 0 sacks, 0 pressures, 0 tackles for loss. Maybe he should have picked a different jersey number.

Brian Baldinger recently pointed out that the Eagles are misusing him by having him be a stand up edge rusher, and he’s not wrong to think that. 9 of his 10 sacks last year with the Jets came from his hand in the ground as a proper defensive end, and the Eagles are asking him to be a stand up linebacker.

Let’s go decabox with Huff pre-snap 10 of his sacks last year, leaving out one that came against a hurry up offense because 11 makes a weird graphic.

The biggest takeaway isn’t that his sacks came from him in a three point stance. It’s that they almost exclusively came with him in a three point stance out of the wide 9.

Let’s dig a little deeper. Last year Huff had 10 sacks, 9 solo and 2 halves. 6 of his 11 sack plays came with a distance of 10+ yards. 4 came on 3rd and 6+. 9 came in the second half. Put Bryce Huff in a passing situation, put him against a tiring offensive line, and, crucially, on a defense where he isn’t the lead pass rusher (he didn’t start a game since 2021) and maybe he can produce. Or maybe not. In 37 games prior to last season, he had just 7.5 sacks.

Simply putting Huff in a three point stance, and putting him in the wide 9 doesn’t magically unlock him. Against the Bucs, Huff was in a three point stance on 6 of his 33 snaps. This was the best rep:

That’s pretty good! The rest were like this:

Yuck. Huff is looking like just another one year double digit sack wonder like Kyler Fackrell (10.5 sacks in 2018, 13.5 in 70 other games), or Romeo Okwara (10 sacks in 2020, 15 in 76 other games), or Josh Uche (11.5 sacks in 2022, 8 in 40 other games).

For cap reasons Huff can’t be cut or traded until 2026 so the Eagles are stuck with this. In the short term, Vic Fangio has but one option to try to get production out of Huff, to play him on passing downs. 16 of Huff’s 33 snaps against the Bucs were on 1st down, though against the Bucs every down is a passing down, they passed on two thirds of their plays against the Eagles.

Bryce Huff is the 14th highest paid edge rusher by fully guaranteed money. It’s past time to start playing like it.