Tennessee Titans have a major talent in Harold Landry
By Will Lomas
Let’s talk about volume and assignments
There is a lot of talk about Harold Landry playing a ton of snaps this past season, and rightfully so. Landry played the 3rd most snaps of any EDGE in the NFL and a huge chunk of that was against the run.
People tend to pigeonhole Landry as a pure upfield pass rusher, but that severely underestimates his ability to set the edge vs the run as well as his ability to anchor vs offensive tackles despite a size disadvantage.
Still, people talk about Landry’s snaps in 2019 and point to his low production numbers, but is that even really true? For his career, Landry has only started 19 games after being a rotational player for most of 2018.
Landry absolutely had a full plate in 2019, but you have to remember that he was asked to take on an entirely new role with the team and was still adjusting to that. Going from a rotational player to a starter takes time to transition and we saw that in 2018 with Rashaan Evans.
Evans went from being a rotational player to a starter during the season and he took a massive leap forward in 2019 after having an offseason to really focus on what he was going to be asked to do as a starter.
Landry had 10 sacks in the season and postseason combined as well as an uncredited sack vs Cleveland- where it was tallied as a FF by the QB behind the line of scrimmage but somehow Landry got no credit for it- but he still isn’t given the respect he has earned even by some in the fan base.
Maybe it is a better idea to look at his production compared to players with similar roles.