Washington defensive end Ryan Kerrigan played a career-low seven snaps Sunday against the New York Giants. That’s despite the 32-year old collecting Washington’s only sack of the game.
Kerrigan’s snaps have decreased this season, as he has taken a backseat to this year’s second overall pick Chase Young and last year’s first-round pick Montez Sweat. Yet, he is tied with Sweat with the most sacks on the team with three this season.
Young played on 44 of Washington’s 48 defensive snaps against the Giants. Sweat played 38 snaps.
Kerrigan entered the season understanding he would take a reduced role behind the two young studs. However, he got off to a great start with two sacks in the season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles, becoming the franchise’s all-time sack leader in the process with 92.
Still, he hadn’t seen much of an uptick in snaps. He had a season-high in Week 3 against the Cleveland Browns with 41 snaps in large due to Young suffering a groin injury in the second quarter of the game. Young missed the following the game, but Kerrigan was still limited to 29 snaps just over half of Washington’s defensive snaps.
Prior to the Giants game, Kerrigan had averaged 27.2 snaps per game and about 30% of the defensive snaps in the previous three games Young played in full. Against New York, he played in 15% of Washington’s defensive snaps.
Giants quarterback Daniel Jones dropped back to pass 20 times which is an extremely low number in today’s game. Kerrigan has become more of a pass rush specialist under defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio this year.
Personnel packages and down and distances impact what sub-packages are used. But, given Washington’s 1-5 record and their focus to feature Young and Sweat, Sunday’s low snap total will increase trade speculations for Kerrigan.
Washington head coach Ron Rivera called Kerrigan “very valuable” to the young players. However as the trade deadline vastly approaching, it will be interesting to see if the veteran remains with the only NFL team he’s ever played with.
