After receiving his first snaps of the 2020 NFL season, it looks like the Kansas City Chiefs might have something in newcomer Taco Charlton. The team signed Charlton on a veteran minimum deal this offseason after the former first-round draft pick was released by the Miami Dolphins.
Charlton was active in his first game this week with Alex Okafor inactive due to injury. He stood out in a big way on several key plays for the Chiefs, with most of his snaps coming later in the game when Frank Clark left the game due to dehydration. He had pass rushes from both the right and left side, filling in to spell players like Tanoh Kpassagnon and Mike Danna at times. His first big play came on L’Jarius Sneed’s interception and his second on the last Chargers offensive possession before overtime.
Then his sack to hold the #Chargers to three ahead of the end of regulation. He's unblocked but stays assignment-sound keeping the edge. He prevents Herbert from hitting Hunter Henry in the right corner of the endzone with his jump. Rallies for the sack on a big-time effort play. pic.twitter.com/EHGfcPTp4j
— Charles Goldman (@goldmctNFL) September 22, 2020
No. 94 made a number of other plays, beating both the left and right tackle for the Chargers, but these two really stood out as the most significant. You could also tell that Charlton has been learning from his former Michigan teammate, Frank Clark, with the type of effort that he played with all game long.
Charlton didn’t just look good on tape, the analytics experts favored his performance too. Among edge rushers with 20 or more pass-rush snaps, Charlton leads the NFL with a 20.0 in Pass Rush Productivity rating. PRP is one of the signature stats from Pro Football Focus. It weighs the different types of pressures (sacks, hits and hurries) to determine how effective a player is at rushing the passer.
All-in-all this was an impressive start to Charlton’s time in Kansas City. It came when the Chiefs were down their top two pass rushers in Clark and Okafor. It certainly feels like this team is five players deep at the edge rusher position. Any one of them can go off for a big day at any given time and that’ll help as the season goes on and more significant injuries begin to play a factor.
