Oakland Raiders: Rookie report card at the midway point of the season

1st Round, 4th Overall — Clelin Ferrell, DE

Clelin Ferell was a shocking pick at the time of the draft with most fans and pundits thinking Josh Allen would be a no-brainer at the number four spot with the Raiders’ biggest need being a pass-rusher.

Ferrell was considered the top edge rusher for most of the 2018 college football season, but if you follow the draft, you know how quickly a player’s stock can change.

By the draft, Ferrell was considered a mid to late first-round talent, but Mayock believed he was worth a lot more than that, telling Sports Illustrated, “He was our guy, OK? And whether we got him at 4, 8, 10, it didn’t matter. He was gonna be our guy.”

Well, so far Ferrell has not lived up to his draft status, despite coming off of his best game as a pro. Ferrell has recorded only nine solo tackles (15 total), one sack, two tackles for a loss, three pass deflections, and two quarterback hits.

Defensive coordinator Paul Guenther has had him playing a lot on the inside, especially on passing downs, which of course will limit his production when it comes to rushing the passer.

He has mostly played on the edge though, with 247 of his snaps being at defensive end, while only 82 snaps have been on the inside at defensive tackle.

Prior to past Sunday’s game against the Lions, Ferrell was last among rookie edge rushers in terms of pass-rush win rate with a rate of 6.7%, per Pro Football Focus. 

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Ferrell does not yet have any refined pass rush moves and cannot win solely with strength as he could in college. But he can hold the edge and take on double teams which we saw last week in a nice play on an inside stunt allowing Arden Key to record the sack.

Ferrell will need to learn to counter and have a better pass rush plan before the snap if he is to contribute more from the edge, from a pass-rushing standpoint, as he has been mostly invisible in that regard thus far.

It is not all bad with the rookie though. Ferrell has shown great field awareness and high football IQ from the very beginning of the season.

His three batted passes are all due to his awareness as he knows when to stop rushing and instead jump up to try and beat the ball down at the line. He has also been outstanding at snuffing out the screen, something that has been the Raiders’ kryptonite for years.

Also encouraging is that he played very well against Detroit, a game where he played a lot more on the edge and less inside than he has in previous weeks.

Ferrell had four pressures and three defensive stops in this game which graded out as the best of his career according to Pro Football Focus, with a grade of 63.4. Multiple times, Ferrell made plays that do not show up on the stat sheet but open up opportunities for other defenders.

He also helped make the game-winning play with one of his four pressures being on the last play of the game on fourth down. The rookie was chip-blocked and jolted towards quarterback Matthew Stafford as soon as he was released forcing Stafford to throw off of his back foot which ended in an incompletion.

Hunter Renfrow seemed to have his breakout game versus the Houston Texans and his performance versus Detroit may have confirmed that.

So let’s hope that this week was the coming-out party for Clelin Ferrell as well.

Grade: D