While sacks get talked about often, pressures are the truest measure of the effectiveness of a pass rusher. SISdatahub.com and pro-football-reference.com both track QB pressures, but they don’t agree. SIS is much more generous with pressures. Trey Hendrickson led the league according to both sites, but SIS credited him with 85 pressures while PFR credited him with 54.

An old debate in sports is would you rather have a consistently good player or a player that can be great in one game and terrible in the next. To evaluate this for the pass rushers in the league I used the SIS data and looked at the average pressures per game for the top pass rushers in the league (40 or more pressures) and then I also looked at the standard deviation of their pressure numbers.

There were 55 players who got 40 or more pressures in 2024. I also included Aidan Hutchinson who would have gotten more than 40 if he did not miss a large portion of the season with injury. He finished with 38, but had one of the best pressures per game numbers in the league. There were 59 games when an elite pass rusher got “shut out”, meaning that they got zero pressures in a game.

Before we get into the deep data dive, lets look at the Denver Broncos pass rushers from last season in terms of their overall pass rush stats.

Our two sacks leaders, Jonathan Cooper and Nik Bonitto generated 53 and 48 pressures according to SIS. Our team leader was Zach Allen, but he also had 586 instances of rushing the passer, so his 69 pressures, which was near the top of the league, meant that he was only generating pressure on 11.8% of his pass rush snaps. Our best front five player in terms of pressure rate was Dondrea Tillman who only generated 21 pressures, but did that on only 149 pass rush snaps (14.9%). Jonah Elliss was still learning that he needed more pass rush moves to succeed in the NFL. His 8.2% pressure rate was bad for an edge, but Baron Browning’s 5.6% while he was still on the Broncos was terribad. It’s the main reason he was sent packing.

The top rushers in 2024 are listed in the table below sorted by pressure rate.

The Broncos best rusher in terms of pressure rate for guys with 40 or more pressures was John Franklin-Myers. His 13.3% was the best among our high volume pass rushers. Nik Bonitto was only shut out once during the 2024 season – in game 2. Zach Allen got more pressures per game than any Bronco rusher, but he was somewhat inconsistent. While he didn’t get shutout in any game, he did have two games where he only got one pressure. Those were gamess nine and game seventeen (at Baltimore and at KC).

RANK
Rusher
Average Pressures per Game
Standard Deviation of Pressures

1
Maxx Crosby
5.67
2.93

2
Micah Parsons
5.38
2.40

3
Trey Hendrickson
5.00
2.69

4
Alex Highsmith
4.45
3.21

5
Zach Allen
4.31
2.09

6
Jared Verse
4.24
2.17

7
Will McDonald IV
4.12
2.29

8
Nick Bosa
4.07
1.82

9
Chris Jones
4.07
2.05

10
Myles Garrett
4.06
2.51

11
Jonathan Greenard
4.00
2.12

12
Brian Burns
3.71
2.26

13
YaYa Diaby
3.71
1.16

14
Greg Rousseau
3.63
3.01

15
T.J. Watt
3.59
2.03

16
Osa Odighizuwa
3.59
1.84

17
George Karlaftis
3.38
1.71

18
Danielle Hunter
3.35
2.26

19
Carl Granderson
3.35
2.71

20
Boye Mafe
3.27
1.98

21
Josh Hines-Allen
3.25
1.77

22
Travon Walker
3.24
1.92

23
Kyle Van Noy
3.19
1.47

24
Jonathon Cooper
3.12
1.45

25
Chase Young
3.12
2.06

26
Will Anderson Jr.
3.07
2.06

27
Leonard Williams
3.00
2.22

28
Josh Sweat
3.00
1.59

29
Nnamdi Madubuike
3.00
2.18

30
Keion White
2.94
1.64

31
Jalen Carter
2.94
1.81

32
Khalil Mack
2.88
1.96

33
Quinnen Williams
2.88
1.89

34
Zach Sieler
2.87
1.41

35
Nik Bonitto
2.82
1.59

36
Cameron Heyward
2.76
1.48

37
Chop Robinson
2.76
2.84

38
Dayo Odeyingbo
2.76
2.39

39
John Franklin-Myers
2.71
1.65

40
Andrew Van Ginkel
2.65
2.32

41
Braden Fiske
2.65
1.69

42
Rashan Gary
2.65
1.73

43
Montez Sweat
2.63
1.15

44
Odafe Oweh
2.59
1.84

45
Derick Hall
2.59
1.42

46
Vita Vea
2.56
1.55

47
Dorance Armstrong
2.56
1.50

48
DeMarcus Walker
2.53
1.81

49
Arden Key
2.50
1.21

50
Jeffery Simmons
2.50
2.00

51
Leonard Floyd
2.47
2.03

52
Dre’Mont Jones
2.47
2.12

53
Kobie Turner
2.41
1.54

54
Dante Fowler Jr.
2.35
1.41

55
Maliek Collins
2.35
1.62

In terms of pressures per game among the 55 best, Zach Allen was the 5th best. Cooper was 24th. Bonitto was 35th and JFM was 39th. Cooper was not shut out. JFM was shut out twice, in the first two games of the season. He was not shut out after that. He averaged 3.1 pressures per game for the rest of the season with a low of two and a high of six which he did in games 14 and 16.

As a team the Broncos led the league in pressures and were second to the Cowboys in pressure rate.

Tm
Att
Cmp
Yds
TD
Bltz%
Hrry%
QBKD%
Sk
Prss
Prss%

1
Dallas Cowboys
512
349
3708
28
29.9%
12.4%
10.5%
52
180
30.1%

2
Denver Broncos
606
393
3752
22
29.5%
8.5%
11.9%
63
195
27.7%

3
Cleveland Browns
511
316
3611
26
26.4%
7.9%
13.3%
41
155
26.5%

4
Detroit Lions
610
373
4148
18
34.6%
10.7%
11.3%
37
179
26.2%

5
Kansas City Chiefs
569
375
3720
24
31.6%
9.0%
12.8%
39
171
26.1%

6
Minnesota Vikings
637
415
4114
24
38.9%
8.7%
10.8%
49
180
25.3%

7
Chicago Bears
503
325
3705
17
23.5%
7.4%
11.9%
40
142
25.1%

8
Seattle Seahawks
569
371
3603
26
23.6%
7.3%
12.0%
45
160
24.8%

9
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
630
418
4147
27
34.2%
8.6%
10.5%
46
173
24.3%

10
Buffalo Bills
578
396
3843
28
19.1%
8.9%
9.5%
39
151
23.6%

11
New York Jets
521
327
3275
18
25.6%
9.2%
8.1%
43
140
23.5%

12
Cincinnati Bengals
573
372
3799
30
21.7%
7.8%
11.3%
36
152
23.2%

13
Houston Texans
554
326
3417
31
24.1%
7.2%
9.0%
49
145
22.8%

14
Washington Commanders
496
307
3221
25
31.5%
7.9%
8.3%
43
129
22.6%

15
Baltimore Ravens
625
396
4150
27
20.3%
6.2%
9.8%
54
159
22.5%

16
Green Bay Packers
565
381
3658
23
17.3%
8.5%
7.6%
45
143
22.1%

17
Pittsburgh Steelers
582
382
3876
23
25.9%
5.8%
10.8%
40
140
22.0%

18
New York Giants
503
349
3580
23
27.9%
6.8%
8.3%
45
126
21.8%

19
New Orleans Saints
591
366
4055
19
20.6%
9.3%
7.3%
39
145
21.5%

20
Los Angeles Rams
542
354
3793
29
23.1%
9.7%
6.3%
38
131
21.4%

21
Las Vegas Raiders
561
370
3676
29
26.3%
8.6%
7.3%
38
133
21.2%

22
Indianapolis Colts
545
378
3899
27
17.5%
7.7%
8.1%
36
127
20.8%

23
Miami Dolphins
572
365
3582
22
23.6%
8.2%
7.5%
35
130
20.6%

24
San Francisco 49ers
516
338
3278
25
17.7%
6.5%
8.3%
37
117
20.5%

25
Atlanta Falcons
578
404
3817
34
20.6%
8.9%
7.3%
31
131
20.0%

26
Los Angeles Chargers
565
367
3517
24
23.8%
5.2%
8.7%
46
129
19.8%

27
Arizona Cardinals
539
370
3674
20
21.6%
7.1%
6.3%
41
119
19.2%

28
Philadelphia Eagles
542
337
2961
22
19.1%
4.7%
7.6%
41
111
17.9%

29
New England Patriots
533
346
3596
27
25.4%
7.3%
6.2%
28
104
17.6%

30
Jacksonville Jaguars
580
389
4375
29
13.9%
6.5%
5.9%
34
111
16.9%

31
Tennessee Titans
473
314
3014
27
20.9%
4.9%
6.8%
32
91
16.7%

32
Carolina Panthers
530
360
3820
35
29.0%
5.9%
5.5%
32
96
16.2%

Pressure helps coverage and defenses playing with a lead find it easier to rush the passer. I would not be surprised at all if the Broncos are at or near the top of the league again in pressures and sacks in 2025. The addition of Sai’vion Jones should allow Allen to get some more rest, which should keep him more effective as the season wears on. The additions of Jahdae Barron, Dre Greenlaw and Talanoa Hufanga should force opposing QBs to make poor throw decisions and should lead to more interceptions and pass break-ups as QBs try to avoid both Patrick Surtain and Barron.