Denver Broncos free agent options if Von Miller is not back
26. Scouting Report. YannickNgakoue. 25. 91. player. Pick Analysis. Age
Ngakoue is 25 going on 26 and he has already been on three different teams in the last calendar year.
The former Maryland pass rusher was franchise tagged by the Jacksonville Jaguars, traded to the Minnesota Vikings, and then traded by the Vikings in-season to the Baltimore Ravens.
Despite playing just six games for the Vikings, Ngakoue ended up leading the team in sacks.
He finished the year with eight sacks, 26 total pressures, 11 QB hits, and four forced fumbles in total between the Vikings and Ravens. He wasn’t able to record any sacks in the Ravens’ two postseason games, but the potential is obvious with Ngakoue.
The Vikings had aims of pairing him with Danielle Hunter for the long-term but as soon as that seemed like a distant possibility, the Vikings had to look at Ngakoue as a sunk cost and get back what they could for him.
The interesting thing here is the fact that George Paton, the Denver Broncos’ GM, was with the Vikings when they traded a second-round pick for Ngakoue. They obviously assumed that would be a late second-round pick when they made the deal, but as they started losing games they had to be kicking themselves.
Ngakoue has long wanted a situation where a team would buy into him long-term. Would that team be the Denver Broncos? One of the youngest pass rushers on the market with huge potential (51 total pressures in 2018 along with 33 QB hits and 9.5 sacks), this is one player who might be worth the long-term investment and price tag.