Getty Josh Uche could be an ideal complement for the Raiders Maxx Crosby.
One of the keys to the turnaround the Las Vegas Raiders had after coach Antonio Pierce took over for Josh McDaniels eight games into the season was the team’s defense. Under McDaniels, the defense had yielded 20 touchdowns and logged 16 sacks in eight games, but under Pierce, that dropped to 16 touchdowns in nine games, with 30 sacks. One of the big issues was increased help for star pass-rusher Maxx Crosby, who saw third-year edge Malcolm Koonce blossom with eight sacks under Pierce.
But the Raiders could use even more help with their pass rush, especially when it comes to giving Crosby the occasional break. That’s the view from Pro Football Focus, which ranked the Raiders’ pass rush just No. 17 in the NFL this season. The solution, PFF suggests, is for the Raiders to land Josh Uche from the Patriots, whom PFF tabbed as “the one free agent” the Raiders “should pursue.
From the site’s evaluation: “The Raiders ask a lot of Maxx Crosby in terms of workload, and while they added Tyree Wilson with the seventh pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, acquiring another productive pass rusher this offseason would help. Uche earned an 87.8 PFF pass-rushing grade and racked up 56 pressures from 285 pass-rushing snaps in 2022. The Raiders could bring him in as a pass-rushing specialist to give Crosby a breather.”
Josh Uche Had a Breakout Year in 2022
Uche was the Patriots’ second-round pick out of Michigan in 2020. There is no question he has a talent for getting to the quarterback, and logged 11.5 sacks in 2022, though he had only 3.5 sacks this season. The question with Uche, and the reason teams will be hesitant to pay him this offseason, is how much he can play. He is 6-foot-3 and 240 pounds, relatively light for an every-down defensive end and while PFF points out that he had a sterling grade in passing downs two years ago, he struggled this year.
His overall grade of 57.1 was 140th in the NFL. As a pass rusher, for 227 snaps, he had a decent grade of 66.8. But on running downs, he had a grade of 61.5 in just 66 snaps. He had to handle coverage on 38 snaps, and was among the worst in the NFL, with a 28.8 grade.
Still, pass-rusher is a premium position in the NFL, and even if Uche is a part-time player, he still figures to get paid. Spotrac projects him to get $14.5 million per year this offseason, on a four-year, $58 million contract. That might be high for a guy with a limited snap count, but there are 15 edge rushers slated to make $20 million in 2024, and another five or six on the market who are likely to cross that threshold. Pass rushers get paid.
The Raiders have a number of holes to fill in the coming months, but will have about $34 million in effective cap space, according to OverTheCap.com. They could create more space with moves like cutting veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
Complement for Raiders Maxx Crosby
As for Uche, he said there were reasons behind his decline in sack numbers this season. One was the absence of Pro Bowl linebacker Matthew Judon, who played only four games before going out for the year with a biceps injury. Uche had three quarterback hits in the first four games with Judon, then had only three more the rest of the year. Uche is a complementary player, and could serve as a complement for the Raiders’ Crosby and Koonce.
He also focused more on not just getting to the quarterback but containing him in the pocket, too. Sometimes getting a sack involves gambling that you can make the tackle—and when you don’t, the quarterback still has a chance to make a big play.
“When it comes down to sacks and pressures and all that, I feel like what I put on film is most important. What coaches are seeing, what other players are seeing, and what people are actually seeing is more important than the overall outcome. Sometimes, the sacks, it takes perfect timing and everything to play out perfectly, and that’s not always the case. All you can do is just keep going. Just trying to put out good film,” Uche told Patriots.com in December.