Imo Wake is better than just "good", on a few levels..there is much more than just sacks, pressure comes in many forms, and can be just as good sometimes, and we know he is elite in terms of pressuring the Qb, and we know he is relentless, and we know he has elite athleticism, and we know he can play the run game very good..I believe he has turned himself into a great football player.
You don't have to convince me he's good. I've been raving about the guy ever since he took something like 13 pass rush snaps in his first preseason game against the Jaguars in 2009 and made Tony Pashos look like a fool. That's all it took for me to see what they'd managed to find all the way up in Canada. But it's a simple fact that at only 8.5 sacks this season you're going to have a pretty tough time trying to convince people he's the best defensive player in the AFC. You keep saying he's the best pass rusher in the NFL or whatever but I think that was just Pro Football Focus' opinion, just one opinion and everyone has their own. It's not ridiculous to be excluded from this list.
I don't think I can agree. You're just looking at sacks and Forced Fumbles there. Pressures and hits need to be taken into account.
seriously ... who cares? Let him fly under the radar of the pundits, and he'll be our under-estimated surprise for opposing offences...
Kind of appreciate that he had a down year with only 8.5 sacks and therefore no Top 100 billing. Made him a lot easier to sign long term.
Personally, I think he deserves to be on the list. But it's the players who vote. Do players take into account hits and pressures? Eh, probably not as much as they do sacks, forced fumbles, and tackles for loss, etc. which is why I can fully understand why he's not actually on the list.
That's good stuff, after that same preseason game I started a thread about him that if he could go back in the draft after that game and the GM'S of the league could have that specific tape to evaluate him,and slot him, that IMO, he would be a top 5 pick. Darrelle Revis is the best player in the afc east, IMO, I said Cam is the 2nd best in the division, and I think all type of pressure, and how it affects the plays outcome,should be included in being an elite pass rusher, and in that regard, we know he's at the top or damn close to it, and personally the way he plays the run, and his absolute freakish athleticism makes me think he has surpassed the good player compliment..jmo.
My most vivid memory of Cam last year was him being shut down during a game versus New England, and for the most part he seemed to struggle throughout the year. I think it has more to do with the scheme and his positioning in the front 7. I don't ever recall the Fins moving him around to create mismatches, but I could just be remembering things wrong. Regardless, I don't see what all the commotion is about in regards to Cam's absence on this particular list. There are some far more glaring issues with it, as there was last year, to get all worked up by any one in particular. I gave up on it being accurate to my projections in it's infancy, and once again it proves that the NFL players who vote are all viewing the game with major differences in perspective and recognition. It's nothing to get upset about, but it's certainly not worth expecting it to be an accurate representation of the true top 100 players in the league.
