Las Vegas Raiders edge rusher Malcolm Koonce exploded during his third season in the NFL. The Buffalo product got his first chance to start and made the most of it, tallying a career-best eight sacks and 52 pressures during the 2023 campaign.
Ahead of 2024, the talented young edge rusher is being tabbed by Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire as the team’s most underrated player.
Here’s a look at what Farrar wrote about the Raiders’ edge rusher:
In 2014, the Raiders selected Khalil Mack with the fifth overall pick in the 2014 draft out of Buffalo, and that worked out pretty well for them. They went back to the well in 2021, taking Buffalo edge-rusher Malcolm Koonce with the 80th overall pick in the third round. Not that Koonce came out with Mack’s terrestrial skill set, but he put up some pretty good numbers in college, and he was the 2019 Bahamas Bowl Defensive MVP with two sacks against Charlotte in what turned out to be Buffalo’s first bowl game victory.
Still, Koonce got very little play in his first two seasons with the Raiders — he had a total of two sacks and six pressures in 2021 and 2022 on just 73 pass-rushing snaps. But given a chance in 2023, Koonce really showed what he could do — he had eight sacks and 52 total pressures, and the only more productive Raiders pass-rusher last season was Maxx Crosby.
Hard to argue with Farrar’s pick here. Koonce definitely flies under the radar thanks to playing next to one of the premier pass-rushers in the game, Maxx Crosby.
Koonce will be the starter on the edge once again in 2024, but he could get pushed by second-year defensive end Tyree Wilson, who will hopefully be able to contribute more after a disappointing rookie campaign.
However, if Koonce can continue playing at the level he displayed last season, it’ll be tough for Wilson to surpass him on the depth chart. And, in turn, Koonce will set himself up for a nice chunk of change in free agency in 2025, assuming the Raiders don’t extend him before then.
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