Houston wants to double his sacks this year. 16 sacks would be ok with me.
For sure Hutch was the surer thing from the neck up. I also feel like he exceeded my expectations. I thought he was a little stiff. Joey Bosa is too, but his pivot is so quick and he explodes into the pocket. Hutch provided a little more of that than I thought he had in him and he showed some flexibility too. What he showed athletically, plus the neck up work ethic etc., we definitely got the right guy for us IMO. Just trying to provide just a little perspective, and there was a bit of a call out - like who was foolish enough to think KT was going to be good, and I felt like “here I am.” I think he had a pretty darned good season and that’s what I was pointing to with the comparisons stat wise, yeah give me the INTs, but it shows he was getting his hands on some balls at the LOS. With the best in front of him I think.
It’s going to be really interesting to see the snap distribution of our EDGE players. With Hutch pretty much a given, at maybe 3 spots 3t/5t/EDGE at the snap (which is a key differentiator as we usually end up with 5 on the LOS by the time the ball is snapped but we disguise it from our base formations whether we have 3 or 4 down linemen). If we have Harris/Houston/JOK as our flamethrower types with reduced expectations against the run. Romeo who is probably the most balanced against the pass and run outside of Hutch. Then Cominsky/Paschel are similar SSDE/3t sub package types. I get the argument of “how much time to spend not playing Houston??!” But there are a lot of mouths to feed right now.
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Twice. James Houston had twice as many sacks as Kayvon in just over half as many games. Thats freakin’ amazing!
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That’s honorable. I didn’t think they’d draft KT due to ‘culture fit’ but I also didn’t expect Hutch to be this good. I figured him to be a 7 sack rookie who’d never have a 10 sack season but would be all-around good. (Since everyone is being honest today).
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Tibby had over half of his QB hits in a 2 game stretch.
Tibby had over half of his solo tackles in a 3 game stretch.
I certainly won’t bank on the Tibby Tiger changing his stripes. He will probably have a good contract year. Outside of that I am going to put my money on him showing up for a handful of games per year and being a JAG in the rest. And many of the games he shows up in will “coincidentally” be nationally televised games, so people will come away with the impression that he plays like that every week. Which perfectly describes his rookie year. Which again, was predictable.
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I agree with all you said. Plus teams will know Houston’s number this year. But thats a good problem to have.
Houston is one step ahead on that. He changed his number from 59 to 41 this year.
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I also wonder if Tibby Doe may have benefited from the convenient fact that he played along side Dexter Lawrence and Leonard Williams…. one of the best DT combos in the NFL…
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Yup - I had a correct bead on your response, my bro. Good response, man. I just believe in Hutch’s heart, guts, effort SO much more than Thibz talent. I always like reading your insights man. Your breakdowns have had a lot of influence on me, especially at draft time. LOL. Just not on that one.
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Do you do the same for Hutch? Because errrr outside of his 3 sack game against Washington and his 2 sack game against GB he ONLY had a measly 4.5 sacks right? RIIIIIIGGGGHHTTTT??? So we can assume he’ll only show some consistency in his contract year… 
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Write up in theathletic today comparing Walker/Hutch/Thibs and future projections.
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Interesting. I really like Diante Lee, he’s one of my favorite pundits. But I hope he’s wrong about Hutch’s pressure rate not improving (and I think he is). He’s basing it solely on his physical limitations but the truth is there’s a huge mental aspect to playing edge that I think he’s underselling. TJ Watt is the most physically-gifted guy but he racks up sacks like crazy. Jared Allen, Judon, Hendrickson, hell even the Bosa bros. It’s strength + the mental side that has those guys regularly amongst the league leaders in sacks.
I do agree with him though that the race to the top is more or less a dead heat between he and Thibs. I think there’s still some acrimony for Thibs on this board from the draft process, and that’s fine, but his underlying metrics are very good (as seen in the article). No one thought he could defend the run and yet he ended the year as maybe the best of the 3 against the run.
I’d still take Hutch for his attitude, personality, and work ethic, and I personally think he’ll be the better player over time. But I think Thibs will be very good too. I think this is one of those situations where we couldn’t have gone wrong no matter who we picked. And that’s fine. Thibs also being good isn’t a negative reflection on Hutch.
There were a few things he skipped over when it came to Hutch performance but overall wasn’t worth losing sleep over. Just happy Hutchinson is in Detroit.
Hutch shows up every game, so I’d have no problem betting on more production out of him in future years. In my mind there will always be an upper limit for Thibs production because he’s simply not going to show up every game. So his overall production will be in a handful of games. In particular the primetime and nationally televised games. If there is an outlier, it will be in a contract year type situation. Then he will get paid and go back to “load management.” Don’t forget this is the same guy that pulled himself out of the combine and then pulled himself out of his pro day.
Tibby doesn’t have a talent issue. He has an issue with playing 100% for 17 games per year. And its not even a laziness issue. He views it as protecting his body aka load management.
The idea that Hutch is limited physically is a farce. Thibs runs faster in a straight line. Hutch crushed him in the agility drills and put up elite numbers there. He had one of the best 3 cones since Von Miller.
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He also skipped on the Lions changing how they used Hutchinson from earlier on in the season to how UM utilized him. TBH, thought he missed a fair amount, but, national guys will do that.
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I agree that he’s an elite athlete, but physical limitations doesn’t only mean testing, it means measurements as well. The author went out of his way to point out how Hutch’s lack of length often prevented him from gaining the necessary angle to turn pressures into sacks. Now I’m not saying I agree or disagree, it’s just what this one pundit - who I generally like - saw on tape.
Also while 3-cone measures how fast a player turns a corner, it doesn’t necessarily correlate with bend. For instance Robert Quinn is renowned for having some of the best bend in the game and he ran an average 3-cone, while Sam Hubbard ran a great 3-cone with very little bend to his game. Hutch’s lack of bend was another area the author nitpicked, though mostly as it compared to Thibs (and he went out of his way to laud his get-off and agility).
The author does give credit to Hutch for changing his rush plans versus different styles of QBs, but he also seems to imply that Hutch’s try-hardness is the predominant way in which he’ll get sacks, and that the approach is limited. I think this is a fairly major generalization, and I don’t really think it holds up. Tenacity in an edge is one of the key elements to production, and here Hutch has Thibs beat in spades.
It also doesn’t take into account any improvements Hutch might make to his rush plan, his study habits, his strength, his nuance, as well as the improved instincts he’ll gain through experience. Like I said earlier, TJ Watt isn’t the longest or bendiest guy, he’s a stud for different reasons. Judon, Jared Allen, Hendrickson, the Bosa bros, etc… they all have limitations they overcome to be studs. I fully expect Hutch to do the same thing.
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