Washington Redskins: Grading Cole Holcomb’s rookie season

The Washington Redskins selected linebacker Cole Holcomb in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. Grading the breakout player’s rookie season.

Cole Holcomb wasn’t supposed to play much as a rookie for the Washington Redskins in 2019. The North Carolina Tar Heels product was a fifth-round pick (173rd overall) in the 2019 NFL Draft. His rookie year was supposed to be quiet. Maybe get some extremely limited playing time on defense, while getting a shot on special teams.

Injuries changed that. Mainly, Reuben Foster suffering an injury that ended his season before it even started. That meant Holcomb was suddenly in a position to play — a lot.

How did he do with that playing time? Let’s grade out Holcomb’s rookie season.

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Remember, Holcomb wasn’t really supposed to play much in 2019. Okay, now that we’ve established that —  how does 105 tackles sound? What about adding in one pass deflection, six tackles for loss, one sack and two QB hits? How about having the second-most forced fumbles on the team with three?

Holcomb was a solid consistent presence in the defense. He put up very good numbers while doing so too. Yes, there are also some flaws in his game. Holcomb has a lot of speed and athleticism but needs to get better in coverage. That much is obvious.

The performance in the run game was strong though. While he wasn’t perfect, Holcomb was good at filling the proper gaps and wrapping up the ball-carrier. Sometimes he would make a wrong read or whiff on a tackle but everyone does that, especially rookies.

Holcomb never really looked like the star of the defense. That was expected though. What wasn’t expected was that he showed flashes of potentially being a star of a defense. He used his speed to catch up to players trying to break away, he forced some great fumbles and he was always making the hustle plays.

That’s what you want from a linebacker. The best part is his weakness, as strange as that may sound. As mentioned before, Holcomb’s weakness seems to be in coverage. However, even that showed improvements by the end of the year. And with his speed, it’s something he might actually get pretty good at.

Holcomb was never the best player on the field for the Redskins. He was never the most exciting either. What he was though, was a fifth-round pick that was grossly outplaying his draft slot.

The grade is weighted as flashes of potential and draft position both factor pretty heavily into the final decision. Due to that and the overall solid play, it’s hard to argue with an A-.