Building a starting defense with remaining NFL free agents

There are still some quality free agents left on the market. To prove that, let’s build a starting defense with remaining free agents.  This is the second and final piece in my series on building starting lineups with remaining free agents.

I did this last year on both sides of the ball and recently did this on offense as well.  Now, it’s time to build a starting defense with remaining free agents.

We likely won’t see a ton of free agent activity left until after the 2023 NFL Draft.  Teams are going to try to fill out the rest of their roster with younger prospects they pick in the draft and what they can’t fill will likely come by way of the remaining free agent waves.

On defense, there are a plethora of players who can still contribute.  For our defense, we’ll have two defensive ends, one defensive tackle, two outside linebackers, two inside linebackers, two safeties, and two cornerbacks, so a standard 3-4 lineup is what we’ll build.

Building a starting defense with remaining free agents: Defensive Line

Defensive Ends: Yannick Ngakoue, Matthew Ioannidis

Both Ngakoue and Ioannidis are middle-of-the-road defensive ends.  Both have talent, and I’m kind of shocked that neither are on a team, especially Ngakoue, who has been in the league since 2016 and has never had less than 8.0 sacks in a season.

Ioannidis had a career-high 8.5 sacks in the 2019 season and has spent time with the Washington Commanders and Carolina Panthers.

Defensive Tackle: A’Shawn Robinson

I want A’Shawn Robinson to be the cog in the middle of my defense.  He’s great against the run which is always welcome but is not a threat as a pass rusher.  I think it’s important to have a strong balance of solid run stuffers and solid pass rushers from the defensive interior.

Very few defensive linemen are going to be solid against the run and as a pass rusher, so sometimes teams may have to pick their battles.