{"id":664388,"date":"2026-01-08T18:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T18:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/664388\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T18:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T18:16:12","slug":"ranking-the-best-first-year-standouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/664388\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranking the best first-year standouts"},"content":{"rendered":"

DRAFTED: Round 1, No. 3 overall<\/p>\n

\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeffSome folks undoubtedly feel this ranking is too high, given Carter\u2019s underwhelming sack total. I actually think it\u2019s too low, given Carter\u2019s overwhelming talent. The No. 3 overall pick isn\u2019t without warts, of course, especially considering he was benched on two separate occasions<\/a> for behavior that his teammate Dexter Lawrence<\/a> called \u201chard-headed.”<\/p>\n

“Just grow up, really,” Lawrence said to reporters<\/a> back in early December. “I think he loves football and he takes it serious. His approach to the game is really good. Just young stuff that can’t happen.” <\/p>\n

Sexy Dexy\u2019s right: Carter must eliminate the nonsense, or he\u2019ll sabotage a skill set that jumps off the screen. For what it\u2019s worth, the rookie logged 3.5 of his four sacks after the second benching. That\u2019s the kind of response you want to see from a 22-year-old with rare ability. The 6-3, 252-pounder boasts explosiveness you can\u2019t teach. Nothing exhibits this better than Carter\u2019s 48 quick pressures (under 2.5 seconds), the highest total in the entire league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DRAFTED: Round 1, No. 3 overall \ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeffSome folks undoubtedly feel this ranking is too high, given Carter\u2019s underwhelming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[80,291,90,798,1303,254,127,260,571,391,54,590,257,19,702,7,1502,795,392,1314,703,13,911,2987,393,262,446,579,249,55,56,255,297,609,288,109,261,250,394,1453,596,485,283,589,351,1416],"class_list":["post-664388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-2025-nfl-draft","tag-abdul-carter","tag-analysis","tag-armand-membou","tag-ashton-jeanty","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-cam-ward","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carson-schwesinger","tag-chicago-bears","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-colston-loveland","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-draft","tag-emeka-egbuka","tag-football","tag-grey-zabel","tag-harold-fannin-jr","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-jacob-parrish","tag-james-pearce-jr","tag-jaxson-dart","tag-jihaad-campbell","tag-kelvin-banks-jr","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-luther-burden-iii","tag-mason-graham","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-new-york-giants","tag-new-york-jets","tag-nick-emmanwori","tag-no-minute","tag-omarion-hampton","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-tennessee-titans","tag-tetairoa-mcmillan","tag-treveyon-henderson","tag-tyler-booker","tag-tyler-shough","tag-tyler-warren","tag-will-campbell","tag-xavier-watts"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}