TRUSTS CHOOCH IN A PINCH
Trent Cole is rated as the top 4-3 defensive end in the NFL by highly regarded website Pro Football Focus when it graded plays from the last 3 years.
The site terms Cole as "criminally underrated." Cole tends to agree that he is underrated, given his reaction to being selected as low as he was in the NFL Network Top 100 players of 2010.
Writes the site: In the last three years, Cole has finished fifth (2008), third (2009) and first (2010) in our overall 4-3 DE rankings, so maybe the Eagles defensive end has a point when he talks about how criminally underrated he is. He gets credit for his pass rushing, but, interestingly, he may be stronger in run defense – where he has finished with our highest grade in each of the past two years. That’s certainly not a slight to his pass rushing ability in that time, where only three defenders have accumulated more total quarterback disruptions. Grade: +113.4
The site reviewed every play and assigned a grade in an effort to reward the complete player and added weighting so it is not just about sacks. The coverage grade is worth three quarters that of the pass rushing, run defense and penalties grades.
Cole is third in the NFL and second among 4-3 ends with 52.0 sacks since 2006. He led the Eagles with 10 sacks last season, although he continues to be dogged by the assertion that he wears down later in the season.
Les
Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News
since 2002.
Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les
only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no
penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite
what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News
from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much
lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their
two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
E-mail Les at bowenl@phillynews.com
and follow
him on Twitter.
Paul
Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982.
He has spent most of his nearly 3 decades with the paper covering the
Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a
selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre
and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo started his career in Texas,
working first for the Midland Reporter-Telegram (1976-78), and then for
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas
Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually was
boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose 2 sports coats to
blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley,
a University of Oklahoma grad who still hasn’t gotten over
that Fiesta Bowl loss to Boise State 5 years ago, have 2 terrific
daughters -- Allison, 28, who is an attorney in South Jersey, and Amy,
25, who works in administration for a professional baseball team.
E-mail Domo at PDomo@aol.com and follow
him on Twitter.
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