Life comes at you fast, and there are few places where that’s truer than the NFL. A decade ago, Nebraska’s Ndamukong Suh was the second player taken in the 2010 draft by the Lions, and Oklahoma’s Gerald McCoy was taken one pick later by the Buccaneers. Both players had times through their NFL careers in which they validated their high positions with stellar play, but now, both players are on the open market. The Rams deemed Suh expendable after their 2018 Super Bowl run, and the Bucs released McCoy on Monday, getting out of a $13 million cap hit.
One day after the Bucs released McCoy, they started work on giving Suh a new NFL home.
Per OverTheCap.com, the Bucs didn’t have enough cap room to sign their draft picks before cutting McCoy–they had just over $1 million remaining–so Suh will have to agree to a deal that gives the team enough room to do that. McCoy will likely get an equivalent deal elsewhere, but who will get the better deal–and the better lineman?
Last season, per Pro Football Focus, the 6’4”, 300-pound McCoy had six sacks, 12 quarterback hits, and 20 quarterback hurries, along with 18 tackles and 18 stops. He had a season that was pretty in line with his previous few seasons, and he did so on a defense that was one of the NFL’s worst. The tape shows a player who can still bull-rush with power, and has the speed and agility to shoot past blockers to create negative plays. McCoy may be 31, but there’s enough left in his game for NFL teams to take him very seriously.
Last season, Suh had seven sacks, 14 quarterback hits, and 37 quarterback hurries, as well as 45 tackles and 37 stops. Unlike McCoy, Suh had a lot of help—he played right next to Aaron Donald, the most dominant defensive player in the NFL—and the Rams’ defense was a big part of their Super Bowl berth. But he was also a major part of that defense, so the 32-year-old Suh also has a lot in the tank. He still has a ton of power, he’s an exceptional run-stopper, and he can generate pressure everywhere from the 1-tech tackle spot to wide defensive end.
Considering that both players will wind up with pretty decent short-term paydays, the question becomes: Who’s the better player option at this point in their careers?
Gerald McCoy
Last season, also per PFF, McCoy played 376 of his 731 snaps at defensive left tackle, 122 at defensive right tackle, 44 at left nose tackle, four at right nose tackle, 141 at left end, and 25 at right end. He’s not quite the interior force that Suh is from a pure power perspective, but Suh would find it difficult to match McCoy’s quickness in short areas. This tackle of Falcons receiver Mohamed Sanu in Week 17 of last season is a perfect example.
McCoy (No. 93) is at left tackle here, moving to the center, and watch how he peels off to tackle Sanu upfield on the quick screen.
McCoy also has a lot of value as a run defender; he’s especially good at moving through slide blocks and finding gaps in moving lines. Here, in Week 15 against the Ravens, he drops running back Gus Edwards for a two-yard gain after working Marshal Yanda, one of the best guards in the NFL.
McCoy showed both his pass-rushing acumen and ability to penetrate using stunts in this Week 9 sack of Cam Newton, shared with linebacker Lavonte David. As center Ryan Kalil turns to his right to deal with David, McCoy shoots around guard Trai Turner to get to the quarterback.
Ndamukong Suh
For his 1,058 snaps in 2018, PFF had Suh at left defensive tackle on 253 snaps, right defensive tackle on 128 snaps, left nose tackle on 167, right nose tackle on 104, head-over nose on 58, and the LEO or REO end on 229 total snaps. That’s an important delineation when discussing Suh’s current value, as are his 95 snaps at either left or right defensive end, because he got a ton of pressures on the outside. Not what you’d expect from a 6’4″, 313-pound career tackle, but it worked nonetheless.
In this Week 5 sack against the Seahawks, Seattle doesn’t adjust to Suh as a wide end, leaving tight end Nick Vannett to deal with Suh alone at the line of scrimmage. As you would imagine, this does not go well. Suh absolutely blows Vannett up right out of the play, running back Chris Carson is an innocent bystander, and Russell Wilson has no chance.
And in this Week 3 sack of Philip Rivers, watch how quickly Suh, playing left end in this case, closes to the pocket as he crosses the face of right tackle Trenton Scott. If you’re a quarterback, you never want to see a man this big moving this quickly in your direction with malevolent thoughts.
Where Suh also still stars is as a run-stopper from the nose tackle position, where he uses his formidable upper-body strength to work through double-teams and chips to bring down the ballcarrier. Here, in the Rams’ divisional playoff win over the Cowboys, watch how he handles both center Joe Looney and right guard Zack Martin to work through and drop Ezekiel Elliot for a short gain.
So, who’s the better player and better value at this point in his career? I think it depends on the kind of defensive lineman you want. If you want a havoc-creator between the tackles—a guy who can blast through gaps by converting speed to power and running past multi-gap obstructions—McCoy might be your man. If you want a brick house in the middle of your defensive line, and you also like the idea of moving that brick house out to the end position and strapping a rocket to it, Suh could be your better bet.
New Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles will benefit from Suh’s skill set just as he’ll miss McCoy’s, and it will be fascinating to see where McCoy winds up, and whose defense he makes better.
