News broke late Monday that Steelers free agent Bud Dupree had signed a big money deal with the Tennessee Titans.
The two-year contract is reportedly worth $33 million ($16.5 million a year), there are other reports the contract is a five-year deal worth $85 million.
The edge rusher will help a Titans defense that collected only 19 total sacks last season, Dupree had 8 sacks before he tore his ACL in Week 12 against the Ravens.
But will he be worth the money the Titans are paying him? According to Pro Football Focus…no.
While Dupree had a monster year in 2019 and was progressing nicely before being injured in 2020, PFF believes Dupree won’t be the same without fellow rusher T.J. Watt on the other side.
“He’s getting hyped up in free agency because of Pittsburgh and T.J.
Watt,” said PFF’s Steve Palazzolo on the PM Team. “We don’t hate anybody we’re just trying to give proper analysis and from a team standpoint, I wouldn’t be the one to pay him the money.”
PFF has average grades for Dupree with his defense at 60.2 and pass rush at 61.2, Those numbers, in their mind, don’t warrant the contract he is getting.
“He has had one year where he has graded well in our systems as a pass rusher, it was 2019 and it was great I mean he was fantastic year, he’s a pretty good run defender and he was a very good pass rusher that year, but he is the type of player who has always had higher sack totals than our pass rush grade would indicate which means other people are doing it or you got a quarterback holding on to the ball to long,” said Palazzolo.
For the amount of money he’s getting, Palazzolo says that Dupree needs to win one-on-one battles and that’s something Bud doesn’t do as well as other edge rushers.
“The biggest selling point for Bud is he’s always had good sack totals and that’s the last thing you should look at when evaluating pass rushers,” added Palazzolo.
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