Washington Redskins: Grading Montez Sweat’s rookie season

Washington Redskins rookie pass rusher Montez Sweat is an exciting prospect. How did he do in his first season though? Let’s grade it out.

The Washington Redskins selected quarterback Dwayne Haskins with their first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft (15th overall). However, they traded back into the first round 11 selections later at No. 26. With that pick, they selected pass rusher Montez Sweat.

Sweat was seen as one of the best prospects in the entire draft. A health issue led to teams worrying about him though. Washington took the gamble. Did Sweat pay off their belief in him though? Let’s go through his rookie season and grade him out.

Just a quick overview of the rules here. First of all, there is more than just the box score. Stats are a big part of the game, but they are not everything. Second, some factors weigh a lot more when going into the grading. Finally, projections go into the grade as well. If a player flashed his potential well, it could give the final grade a boost.

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Montez Sweat had 50 tackles (eight for loss) with seven sacks in his rookie season. He also had two forced fumbles and two pass deflections. Those are really good stats. You might not have noticed he was having a good rookie year, however. There are two big reasons for that.

First of all, a lot of fans were down on him from the start. There was legitimately one moment in the season when he got his fourth sack and some fans were on Twitter saying it was his first sack of the year.

Second, and this is the bigger one. Sweat disappeared in games sometimes, and it was not his fault. Greg Manusky was the defensive coordinator. Midway through the year, I can’t think of many fans that wanted him in that position any longer.

Sweat is a pass rusher — it’s 100 percent his game. Despite that, he was dropping back in coverage quite often. This made Sweat a non-factor. It’s also something that probably won’t happen much in the future. Jack Del Rio switching to a 4-3 defense already tells you that Sweat is going to be going after the quarterback basically every snap. This will get make him that much more dangerous.

More importantly, though, seven sacks is a fantastic number for a rookie to produce. In comparison, Khalil Mack had just four his rookie year. Ryan Kerrigan had 7.5, and he’s been amazing for the Redskins throughout his career. Shaquil Barrett and Chandler Jones were top two in the NFL in sacks this season (Barrett had 19.5 and Jones had 19). Neither had seven sacks their rookie year.

No, that doesn’t mean Sweat’s going to be a 20-sack per year guy, but it shows that seven in a rookie year is a fantastic start to a promising career.

Finally, Sweat played all 16 games. He quickly put a stop to the health concerns. Now imagine Sweat with Chase Young, the Redskins likely target with the No. 2 overall pick in 2020. That’s really scary. The potential is elite. He’s an athletic freak that quelled doubts about his health. Oh, and 50 tackles and seven sacks in a rookie season with a defensive coordinator that didn’t seem to know how to play him? That’s awesome.

Sweat gets a B+ grade because of all that, and he really was knocking on the door of an A-. If he had gotten to play his game all year, there is no doubt in my mind he would have at least gotten that far.