Ranking the NFL's Best Young Pass-Rushers

For decades, the NFL has been trending toward becoming more of a passing league. There should be no surprise that the 14 largest average salaries in the NFL, according to Spotrac, all go to quarterbacks.

What is interesting, though, is the next most-valued position in the sport: line-of-scrimmage defenders. Coming in 15th in average salary is Denver's Von Miller, a pass-rusher, which sets the tone for where most of the money is spent on the defensive side of the ball in the NFL.

Line-of-scrimmage defenders, be they interior linemen or edge defenders, have run fits they need to fill on handoffs. Unlike off-the-ball linebackers, though, their contributions in the passing game come from shooting gaps, not dropping back into short zones or covering backs and tight ends one-on-one.

Of the 12 highest-paid defenders in the sport, 11 of them play on the line of scrimmage. If you look at age and production, it's easy to tell who the league's star pass-rushers will be.

Using age and production to sort through this up-and-coming generation of edge defenders, we'll spotlight five of the best pass-rushers in the NFL who are 23 years old or younger. Typically, early success is an indication for long-term stardom at the position, and there are a handful of players who are already separating themselves from the pack.

This group of five pass-rushers has a total of 38 individual career sacks, if you count half-sacks as a full data point, which have ended 35 drives without another converted first down. Pressures can influence where a quarterback goes with the ball, but sacks kill drives, which is why franchises are investing so much in line-of-scrimmage defenders in the first place.

The first four players on the list are slated to make a combined $15.66 million over 16 years. While your Average Joe feels like he hit the lottery by making just under $1 million a year, Miller's six-year, $114.5 million contract shows us what the going rate for an NFL pass-rusher is going to be in coming years, which is about 20 times what those rookie contract players are making.

These players are not only emerging names in the NFL, but you can make the case they might provide their franchises with some of the best contract values in the league in the near future if they aren't already.

5. Yannick Ngakoue, DE, Jacksonville Jaguars

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Yannick Ngakoue had a total of 21 sacks in three years with the Maryland Terrapins, which prompted him to leave school a year early for this past NFL draft, where the Jacksonville Jaguars selected him in the third round.

Only one 4-3 defensive end underclassman, Alex McCalister, was drafted behind Ngakoue, which can mean one of two things if you look at it from a macro level. First, it's possible he made a mistake by declaring a season too soon. Second, the Jaguars might have found themselves a steal.

If you're judging by the first half of the season, the latter is true. Ngakoue's four sacks are tied with San Diego's Joey Bosa atop the rookie standings nine weeks into the season. At his current pace, Ngakoue should post an eight-sack year.

Since 2004, only three rookies who were drafted outside of the first two rounds of the draft have been able to match or exceed an eight-sack season. Those three names are Mark Anderson, who had two double-digit sack seasons as a career journeyman; Elvis Dumervil, who has 96 career sacks; and Jared Allen, who retired last offseason with 136 sacks.

Ngakoue faced an uphill battle to get on the field as a rookie, as Jacksonville's under front only has one true pass-rushing position on the field. The team already spent the third overall pick in 2015 on a pass-rusher in Dante Fowler of Florida, which meant starting was improbable if not near impossible.

In eight games, Fowler has one start. Ngakoue already has seven on his resume.

At just 21 years old, Ngakoue is creating legitimate pressure and forcing sacks at the NFL level. As an edge-bender, no one in the 2016 class is coming close to what he's doing for the Jaguars this season.

More than a dozen defensive linemen were drafted before Ngakoue. Several franchises regret their April decisions.

4. Preston Smith, OLB, Washington Redskins

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Last year, Preston Smith of the Washington Redskins led the 2015 rookie class in sacks with eight. That was while he started just two of 16 games.

Here is a list of players who hit or exceeded Smith's rookie sack mark since 2007:

• Aaron Donald, two-time Pro Bowler
• Ezekiel Ansah, one-time Pro Bowler
• Bruce Irvin
• Aldon Smith, one-time Pro Bowler
• Von Miller, four-time Pro Bowler
• Jabaal Sheard
• Ndamukong Suh, four-time Pro Bowler
• Carlos Dunlap, one-time Pro Bowler
• Brian Orakpo, three-time Pro Bowler
• Clay Matthews, six-time Pro Bowler

To say the least, Smith is off to one of the best starts for a line-of-scrimmage pass-rusher in recent memory. After displacing Trent Murphy, a 2014 second-round pick, Smith has taken over as a full-time starter this year, though his production has dropped to just 1.5 sacks over eight games.

Still, Smith's effort-based approach to rushing the quarterback has opened up plenty of opportunities for the Redskins defense, as Ryan Kerrigan and Murphy both ranked in the NFL's top 10 in sacks for the year after Sunday. It may not be translating as well to the stat sheet as last season, but Smith is still playing at a very high level for someone who is just 23 years old.

The former second-round pick looks to have locked down the 3-4 outside linebacker spot for the foreseeable future. Kerrigan's $57.5 million contract runs out in 2021, and there's a good chance Smith outlasts him in Washington.

Only the Atlanta Falcons' Vic Beasley, the Arizona Cardinals' Markus Golden, the Minnesota Vikings' Danielle Hunter and the Seattle Seahawks' Frank Clark can match or exceed Smith's 9.5 sacks in the NFL from the 2015 draft class.

3. Danielle Hunter, DE, Minnesota Vikings

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In 2015, after starting his first NFL season at the age of 20 years old, Minnesota's Danielle Hunter finished second in his rookie class with six sacks. In his entire college career at LSU, Hunter only registered 4.5 sacks with the Tigers.

The Vikings took a gamble by burning a third-round pick on a project, but the fact that they've bought into athletic pass-rushers across the board—including Pro Bowler Everson Griffen, Brian Robison and hybrid linebacker Anthony Barr—has paid off several times for Minnesota.

In the draft cycle, defensive line coach Andre Patterson told NFL.com's Gil Brandt about an athletic pass-rusher from Montana, who, despite leading the FCS in sacks, wasn't invited to the NFL's combine. On draft day, that Montana end, Tyrone Holmes, had his name called as the 181st overall pick.

The Vikings are ahead of the curve relative to the rest of the league when it comes to targeting freak athletes on the edges, and there is no bigger trophy for them to hold up than Hunter. Hunter has 10 sacks over the last two years, more than all but one player in his draft class: Vic Beasley.

Unlike Beasley, who has started 23 of 25 games in Atlanta, Hunter has had to work behind a rotation of Griffen and Robison to see the field. Hunter is the second-most productive pass-rusher from the 2015 draft class despite the fact that he's started just one of 22 games in the NFL.

Once Hunter sees a starter's helping of snaps, he may develop into a double-digit sack artist. That's impressive to highlight for such a young player, as some members of his draft class are nearly four years older than he is.

2. Frank Clark, DE, Seattle Seahawks

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At the midway point of this season, Seattle Seahawks defensive end Frank Clark has 6.5 sacks. The 2015 second-round pick is mostly used as a rotational rusher, but with starter Michael Bennett out, Clark has been playing full-time reps for stretches, which does not seem to bother him.

In all likelihood, both Bennett and Cliff Avril would have been Pro Bowl players if they played a 16-game season this year. These opportunities have afforded Clark the spotlight, though, and he's now 11th in sacks league-wide.

The only members of his draft class who have outsacked Clark in both the 2015 regular season and thus far into the 2016 season are Atlanta's Vic Beasley, the second pass-rusher off the board; Arizona's Markus Golden, a second-round pick; and Danielle Hunter. While Clark is just a 23-year-old, Beasley is a year older, and Golden started his NFL as an over-aged 24-year-old last season.

If you're trying to find a pass-rusher from the 2015 draft class who checks off the boxes of young, athletic and productive, it's hard to find a better example than Clark. For reference, here is a list of athletic pass-rushers drafted in the top 100 since 2005 who were able to register four or more sacks in or before the regular season that they began as 23-year-olds:

• J.J. Watt (Houston Texans)
• DeMarcus Ware (Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos)
• Von Miller (Denver Broncos)
• Justin Houston (Kansas City Chiefs)
• Mario Williams (Houston Texans, Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins)
• Robert Quinn (St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams)
• Shawne Merriman (San Diego Chargers and Buffalo Bills)
• Clay Matthews (Green Bay Packers)
• LaMarr Woodley (Pittsburgh Steelers, Oakland Raiders and Arizona Cardinals)
• Chris Long (St. Louis Rams and New England Patriots)
• Connor Barwin (Houston Texans and Philadelphia Eagles)
• Cameron Jordan (New Orleans Saints)
• Adrian Clayborn (Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons)
• Khalil Mack (Oakland Raiders)
• Anthony Barr (Minnesota Vikings)
• Vic Beasley (Atlanta Falcons)
• Preston Smith (Washington Redskins)
• Danielle Hunter (Minnesota Vikings)

Of the 15 edge defender types who have been in the league multiple seasons heading into 2016, they have accounted for 42 combined Pro Bowls, and all but Chris Long and Adrian Clayborn have been to at least one. It should be noted, Clayborn had major injuries between his second and fourth years in the league that kept him off the field for 28 of 48 games.

Stardom is the path Clark is on early in his career. In Seattle's scheme, which often features four defensive ends on pass-rushing third downs, Clark has been able to sharpen his skills from the get-go.

1. Joey Bosa, DE, San Diego Chargers

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If you follow college football, the draft process or the last month or so of San Diego Chargers football, you already know who Joey Bosa is. The son of John Bosa and nephew of Eric Kumerow, who were drafted 16th in the 1987 and 1988 draft classes, respectively, as defensive ends, the St. Thomas Aquinas product was graded as a 5-star recruit coming out of high school, according to Scout.com.

As a freshman at Ohio State, where his uncle played collegiate football, Bosa earned a starting job, which then led to Freshman All-American honors in 2013. For the 2014 and 2015 seasons, he earned All-American honors on the national level, finishing his college career with 51 tackles for a loss and 26 sacks.

Bosa declared for the NFL draft as a 6'5", 269-pound 20-year-old, making him one of the youngest prospects in the 2016 draft class. Surprisingly, Bosa was the first non-quarterback drafted when the Chargers took him third overall.

In San Diego's 3-4 scheme, he was a bit of a projection, as he had previously played base end in the Buckeyes' 4-3 defense, but those questions have vanished now. With only five games under his belt—because of his longstanding holdout—he has four sacks.

Not only does that lead this year's draft class, but over a 16-game season he would be on pace to notch 13 sacks. That would place him third all-time among rookies behind Jevon Kearse, who had 14.5 sacks in 1999, and Aldon Smith, who had 14 sacks in 2011.

To put that into perspective, from the 2007 draft class on, only two rookie classes have featured edge defenders who put up double-digit sacks. What Bosa is doing right now is incredibly impressive, and it can be quantified statistically.

According to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric, the Chargers were 20th in defense before Bosa made his debut. Entering this past weekend, they were seventh in defense, with the sixth-best pass defense in the league.

For San Diego, Bosa's four sacks rank only behind Melvin Ingram, a 2012 first-round pick who had double-digit sacks last season, and he only trails Ingram by one quarterback takedown. Those pass-defense metrics have also held despite the fact that starting cornerback Jason Verrett, a 2014 first-round pick and 2015 Pro Bowler, tore his ACL in the first week of October.