TEAM TALENT ALONE: WEEK 12 – Jordan Love on the Rise, Montez Sweat on the Fall
Welcome to Team Talent Alone, the weekly article covering the NFL. The year is ticking down to its end so let’s take a look at a player on the rise and a player on the… opposite of rise.
Team Talent Alone is a list created by the staff at Talent Alone that features players we like. Nothing more complicated than that. Check out the list here.
Tape Study: Montez Sweat post-Trade
Montez Sweat was traded from the Commanders to the Bears on Halloween for the Bear’s 2nd Round pick (which you think the Bears would have learned their lesson about trading their 2nds). Sweat signed a 4 year $98 million contract four days later to become one of the highest-paid pass rushers in the league. The argument can be made to justify this move by Chicago.
Sweat was a highly sought-after prospect coming out of college but an injury led to him falling to 26th in the 2019 Draft where the Commanders traded up to grab him. He is an outstanding athlete, having set the record for a 40-yard dash for a defensive lineman, a 7-second 3-cone and 36” vertical. He also produced well during his time on the Commanders where he racked up 29 sacks and 113 pressures in his first 4 years in the league. He played well without Chase Young in the lineup during 2022, when Young played only 3 games, Sweat had 8 sacks and 31 pressures. But what about this year? How has Montez Sweat played since becoming the franchise guy in Chicago?
Sweat has played four games for the Bears, in those games he’s had a 64.7 PFF grade (yikes!). Let’s take a look at what has gone well and what hasn’t.
Sweat has always been a guy who tries to win with his speed. He likes to move upfield and corner or take a quick line inside off his first step to try and get a tackle kicking back too far. This has been (decently) successful so far in his career when he’s typically going up against the 2nd best Tackle (when Young has been in the lineup) or gets to play 1-on-1 since the middle of the O-Line has to focus on handling superstar interior players like Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen. These habits really hurt him against Detroit in November when, equally athletic, Penei Sewell and Sam LaPorta absolutely ate Sweat’s lunch.
Montez Sweat was losing all day to Sewell. Here’s a rep much later in the game where Sweat can’t get anywhere with Sewell on a pivotal run play.
By the end of the Lions game, it seemed like the Defensive coaching staff in Chicago had decided to go elsewhere with the D-line. On the final two drives, Sweat got outsnapped by Gervon Dexter and Yannick Ngakoue. Sweat did get moved over to the right side of the O-line but was largely ineffective there as the Lions were using two blockers against him while Chicago kept stubbornly trying to get through the left side of the Detroit line.
Quick breather Bear’s fans, let’s look at some fun reps just to ease the pain. Here he is blowing up Sam LaPorta (who I wrote about as a blocker here).
And here’s the easiest sack any player will get all season.
Sweat had an impactful game against the Vikings this past Monday. In that game, he put up 2 sacks and 7 total pressures. This was the game you were hoping for when you traded a 2nd for Sweat and signed him to a deal that will be the biggest cap hit on your books in 2024. Okay, Bear’s fans thanks for reading the article. Love CM Punk, isn’t the Red Line the worst? Have a nice day!
Are they gone?
Okay good.
Sweat’s production against Minnesota is an illusion. What happened in this game is a unique and rare circumstance, Joshua Dobbs, is bad at playing quarterback. Listen this isn’t my soap box to shout this but to take a second.
*climbs on soapbox*
“JOSHUA DOBBS IS BAD AT PLAYING QUARTERBACK!”
*steps off soapbox*
Whoa, that feels better than therapy or heroine ever could. Dobbs has a time to throw of 3.01 seconds, the 8th longest in the NFL. That gives defensive linemen time, add in that one of Montez Sweat’s two sacks and another close call came on a stunt when he was rushing against Ed Ingram who is, to put it kindly, not an All-Pro caliber guard in the league (59.9 PFF grade).
Just look at how long Dobbs holds the ball on these plays! Playing offensive line is just a game of playing a losing battle for long enough that your QB can do something and Dobbs doesn’t do anything.
Listen, offenses still have to respect Sweat’s talent, he’s getting chipped by TEs and getting double teams, but he is not a game wrecker and he’s being paid like one starting next year. I don’t think it’s time to call this trade a bust for Chicago but the Bears needed a lot to improve their team and $25 million Pass Rusher for a 2nd was not at the top of the list.
Montez Sweat was one of my favorite players when he was a Commies, that’s why he’s even on the Team Talent Alone list, but if he wants to live up to the contract he needs to start thinking about doing something other than just out athlete-ing left tackles because it is not working.
By the Numbers: Jordan Love Ascension - Real or Fake?
I know for some reason it’s National Jordan Love week but humor me for one more article about whether Love is real or fake. Jordan Love was drafted 26th in 2020 and heralded as the eventual replacement for Aaron Rodgers, the biggest impact he had in his first three seasons was that his addition seemed to piss off Rodgers and fuel his renaissance and add t two additional MVPs on Rodgers’s mantle. This year, with Rodgers gone to New York and then very quickly to the Lance Armstrong Kerlan-Jobe Institute, Love finally got his chance to be the unquestioned QB1 in Green Bay.
I say unquestioned but there were… some questions. First, Jordan Love got a $13.5 million, one-year extension through 2024 (the 20th highest contract for a QB). Second, no one knew if he could do it or not. Obviously, the powers-that-be in Green Bay had some concerns, if they didn’t he probably would be looking at a longer deal for more money. Okay, enough interruptions talking about contracts, let’s talk about Jordan Love’s numbers this season.
Through the Packer’s bye week (Week 6) Jordan Love did not look like the next Aaron Rodgers. Love was 17th in EPA/play, dead middle of the league amongst QBs with at least 100 plays and 21st in Success rate. During this stretch, he had 8 touchdowns, 6 ints, and a mediocre 61 grade by PFF. Let me start here but justifying some of this, Love had an average depth of target (or ADoT) of 10.2, which was by a solid margin the deepest in the league. This means he was taking shots and that is something I like seeing in a QB. The other factor leading to his lackluster start to the season was his young core of receivers dropping the ball like they were Nelson Aghalor. Of passes Love threw that were on target, 8.2% of them were dropped, which was the fifth highest rate in the league.
The Packers went into their bye with a 2-3 record and decided to fix things. Green Bay came out of the bye week and… immediately dropped two straight games. Okay, bad example. The real breakout happened in Week 9 when the Packers beat the Rams 20-3 and from Week 9 on have gone 3-1 to get to a game under .500 with a relatively easy schedule the rest of the way (sans this Sunday’s game against Kansas City).
Okay, so Jordan Love. That Week 9 is an important marker for his season as well as the Packers. In the Week 9 game against the Rams, Love went 20-26 for 228 yards and 1 TD in a decisive victory for the Packers. Since Week 9, Love has had the 3rd highest EPA/play (just behind Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott) and the 8th highest Success rate. He’s had PFF grades of 65.5, 74.1, 83.2, and 86.6 for an overall PFF Grade of 84, good for the 5th best in the league during this stretch. Counting stats-wise, he’s put up 276.5 yards per game, 8 Touchdowns, and 2 picks.
I shared the blame for Love’s season starting slump with the receiving core and ADoT, so let’s look at those factors from Week 9 on. His ADoT has dropped to 9.4 which isn’t a massive drop but does show improvement in identifying the defense and dumping the ball off to AJ Dillion. Love’s receivers have picked up their game (or maybe just stopped dropping their game). Jordan Love’s on-target passes have been dropped 6.3% of the time since Week 9, that mark is 17th in the NFL. That’s a delta of almost 2%, which is a pretty solid change.
During his ascension, Love has played some softer defenses. The two LA teams (Rams Week 9 and Chargers Week 11) have ranked as the 18th and 30th defense against the pass by EPA/play since Week 9. However, he also has played well against the 8th and 9th-ranked Steelers and Lions during this time. The Lions game was an especially impressive game where Love put up the 3rd best EPA/play on the Week and threw for 3 Touchdowns without turning the ball over.
800 words later and it’s time to make a call here. Is Jordan Love’s Ascencion Real or Fake? I would absolutely love (no pun intended) to make a cop-out call here and say that this is still in progress but god damnit I didn’t go to 8 years of Journalism School just to cop out.
The Jordan Love Ascension is:
REAL
