https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/05/15/the-pff-101-no-5-lavonte-david/ Tampa Bay is a team used to seeing prototypical 4-3 weakside linebackers doing their thing. InDerek Brooks they watched a player who defined the position for over a decade and is now in theHall of Fame, and Lavonte David is his heir apparent.Like Brooks, David is a smaller linebacker but lightening quick and makes up for that lack of size with how fast he can read the play, react to it and blow it up. David ended the season with a +26.4 grade, dwarfing the next best conventional 4-3 OLB’s +14.4 mark (setting aside Von Miller for the moment because of the unique way in which he is deployed).David’s M.O. is to play with speed and play the game in the backfield, showing an ability to close on the football that we haven’t seen from anybody playing his position for a long time. He graded positively in every facet of the game that PFF grades; as a pass rusher, in coverage, against the run and in disciplinary terms when it came to penalties. In a similar tale to that of Gerald McCoy in front of him and Revis behind him, David got little help from the rest of the Tampa Bay linebacking corps.While David was setting things alight, Mason Foster, the only other Bucs linebacker to play more than 270 snaps, was struggling, especially against the run. David notched 32 combined tackles more than Foster, despite playing a position that traditionally yields fewer, and made 45 more defensive stops from those tackles, showing that he was playing closer to the line of scrimmage than Foster was.When it came to Run Stop Percentage David was the best ranked linebacker at his position, making a defensive stop against the run on 13.5% of his snaps, more than 3% better than the next placed linebacker.Best Game: Week 7 vs. Atlanta (+5.0)In this game against the Falcons David was actually beaten in coverage for a touchdown, (his only one of the year) and yet still finished with his highest grade of the season. How? He made nine defensive stops in the game (no other Buc had more than two), three of which were drive-killing plays on third down. Twice he made stops behind the line of scrimmage wrecking plays before they could ever get going.Look at the speed with which he destroys this running play. He crowds the line before beating the block of an offensive lineman quickly and still beats the running back to the corner, forcing the play back inside to his help, shutting it down.Key Stat: Made 83 defensive stops, 21 more than the next best 4-3 OLB.If there’s one number that shows the kind of player David is, it’s this one. Not all tackles are created equal. A tackle 10 yards down field on 3rd-and-7 isn’t a particularly useful play, but one at the line of scrimmage on 3rd-and-2 is. Defensive stops include any tackle that constitutes an offensive failure on the play. Short of the required distance on third and fourth downs, fewer than 40% of the required yards on first down, and so on.David had 21 more stops than any other player at his position. In fact, he more than doubled the stop total for all but seven other 4-3 OLBs. David was making plays closer to the line of scrimmage than anybody else and did it without sacrificing his position in coverage, finishing just behind Carolina LB Thomas Davis at the top of the coverage grades for the position. In short, David was the perfect WLB in that 4-3 scheme in 2013, and may well have been every bit as good as Gerald McCoy in front of him.Like McCoy, David can count himself extremely unlucky to have had such a fine season and yet still be overshadowed by at least two defenders, struggling just to place on the podium for the PFF Defensive Player of the Year standings. That being said, David had an outstanding season, and well deserves his spot at No. 5 in the PFF Top 101. https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2014/05/15/the-pff-101-no-4-gerald-mccoy/ If there’s a player that timed a great season badly it’s Gerald McCoy. With J.J. Watt and Robert Quinn both re-writing expectations at their positions, Gerald McCoy dominated as a 4-3 defensive tackle in a way we have rarely seen and it almost passed without notice. Such was the shadow cast by the other two.In fact the Bucs 2013 season had three stud defenders, one at each level of the defense, but the supporting cast around each was so poor that it still couldn’t stop them from ranking in the middle of the pack in most defensive categories.Gerald McCoy was a wrecking ball as the Bucs’ three-technique, causing no end of disruption inside as he penetrated the offensive line to generate pressure more than any other player at his position. The 80 total pressures that McCoy notched were eight better than the next best DT (Ndamukong Suh) and his Pass Rushing Productivity score was, again, some way clear of Suh, who was still a distance clear of the chasing pack.What makes McCoy’s performance so impressive is that he was doing it with virtually no help from anyone else on the Buccaneers’ front. Really, it’s tough to overstate how much McCoy was on his own there. He ended the season with a +57.3 grade overall, but was the only Tampa Bay defensive lineman to earn a positive grade for the season. The rest combined for a -84.7 grade! Despite the total dearth of threats outside of McCoy, teams were still unable to prevent him from causing problems inside and if anything he got stronger as the season went on, collecting a sack in his last four consecutive games.McCoy finally got healthy for a full season and showed why many people thought he was the best defensive tackle available in his draft class and not Ndamukong Suh. Best Game: Week 14 vs. Buffalo (+9.5)The Bills’ offensive line was much maligned in some corners but actually played pretty well last season, especially when it came to pass protection. We charged two Bills quarterbacks with more sacks than any of their linemen in 2013 and as a unit they actually had the fifth-best Pass Blocking Efficiency figure, allowing only 148 total pressures, again good for fifth in the league.Despite those numbers the Bills allowed McCoy to tear through them to the tune of one sack, two knockdowns and four hurries. He also batted down a pass at the line and all five tackles he made on the day were defensive stops. This was McCoy at his most destructive, wreaking havoc behind the line of scrimmage, despite the rest of the Bucs’ defensive line combining for just 11 total pressures between seven players.Take this play as an example. He powers through the B-gap despite traffic to his outside, causing a rushed throw from the quarterback that ultimately fell incomplete. This is a great example of the positive effect a strong pass-rush can have even if the play doesn’t result in a sack for the rusher.Key Stat: His 80 total pressures was bettered by just four other players; three edge rushers and Watt.Gerald McCoy has become the prototypical 3-technique or under tackle in a 4-3. He is the pass-rushing player on the interior of a four-man line and the player usually tasked with beating a guard one-on-one and disrupting plays in the backfield. McCoy has become as good as anybody at shooting gaps and playing on the opposing side of the line of scrimmage. The level of pressure he has been able to generate playing on the inside, despite little help around him, is remarkable.In any other year McCoy would likely be the Defensive Player of the Year, but in 2013 he couldn’t even be the first runner up in that category at PFF. Despite being overshadowed by the years Watt and Quinn had, McCoy should not go without notice and he is well worth his place at No. 4 on the PFF Top 101.
