It’s an interesting time to be an interior defensive lineman in the NFL. Not only do you have to beat guards and centers inside in traditional four-man fronts, you also have to show a lot of positional versatility, and you’ll be moving around anyway as the league transitions to more five-man fronts. We’re not spoiling much here when we say that once again, Aaron Donald is our best interior defensive lineman, and last season for the Rams, Donald played 11 snaps in the A-gap, 430 in the B-gap, 628 snaps over the tackles, and 188 snaps outside the tackles.
What does this tell you? The Rams want Donald aligned everywhere — whether it’s straight over the center, attacking gaps, or blowing tackles off their feet from the edge. These versatility requests are common in today’s NFL to the point where an interior defensive lineman who works from one of two gaps is the exception, not the rule. Even Vita Vea, the Buccaneers’ ginormous interior threat, spent 50 of his 2021 snaps over the tackles, and 10 snaps outside.
So, when we talk about the NFL’s best interior defensive linemen, we’re really talking about run-stoppers and disruptors who make the cake inside, and manufacture the frosting outside to a greater or lesser degree.
Four of the players from last year’s list (Fletcher Cox, Akiem Hicks, Stephon Tuitt, Grady Jarrett) didn’t make the cut this time, which can be put down mostly to injury and attrition. Tuitt, for example, missed the entire 2021 season and then retired. Hicks, a serious problem for any offensive line when healthy, played in just nine games last season. Cox was healthy all season, but as much as he’s built up what will be a pretty decent Hall of Fame argument down the road, 2021 just wasn’t the same — though one of his teammates is part of this year’s new blood. Jarrett just missed the cut, and given what he had around him last season, you could certainly make a case for him.
The new blood makes for some amazing players and defensive schemes, and here are Touchdown Wire’s 12 best interior linemen in anticipation of the 2022 season — another one of our position lists as Mark Schofield and myself lead up to our rankings of the 101 best players in the NFL today.
The NFL’s top 13 safeties
The NFL’s top 12 slot defenders
The NFL’s top 12 outside cornerbacks
The NFL’s top 11 linebackers
The NFL’s top 11 edge defenders
(All advanced metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions, Pro Football Focus, and Football Outsiders unless otherwise indicated).
The 49ers selected Armstead with the 17th overall pick in the 2015 draft out of Oregon, and it took a while for Armstead’s acumen to catch up to his athleticism. He posted 13 sacks and 73 total pressures in San Francisco’s Super Bowl season of 2019, backed off to four sacks and 41 pressures in 2020, and worked his way back up to 10 sacks and 59 pressures last season. Consistency has not been Armstead’s calling card to date, but when he’s on, there are few better interior disruptors in the league.
Richard Sherman, who played with Armstead in San Francisco from 2018-2020, is still a fan.
I really hope one day soon people really can see @arikarmstead impact on this defense in both the Run and pass game. He makes alot of things work for one of top Defenses in football. https://t.co/NtMxRwBiOp
— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) July 11, 2022
Armstead’s performance against the Rams in Week 18 was the definition of “on” — he had two sacks and seven total pressures from different gaps, and that athleticism shined through. Here, Rams left guard David Edwards got himself bulled all the way back by Armstead (No. 91) — a process that ended with a Matthew Stafford takedown.
Armstead was also a problem for the Packers in San Francisco’s divisional round win. Here, he lined up head over right tackle Dennis Kelly, and then worked right guard Lucas Patrick into a very bad place.
Armstead posted no pressures of any kind against the Rams in the conference championship rematch, and given his history, one hopes that’s a one-game disappearing act. We are projecting a bit with Armstead, but the upside makes that a worthwhile endeavor.
The Giants selected Lawrence with the 17th overall pick in the 2019 draft out of Clemson, and it didn’t take long for Lawrence to impress observers. He put me in mind of one of the more underrated massive IDL of his era.
Remember Peak Shaun Rogers? Dexter Lawrence could be that. He's not just a two-down fat guy–he can split double teams and disrupt at 340-whatever pounds. pic.twitter.com/6kzTQo9TBH
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) August 22, 2019
2021 was Lawrence’s best NFL season to date, as he totaled three sacks, nine quarterback hits, 31 quarterback hurries, and 32 stops on just 427 pass-rushing snaps. Lawrence is also a plus run defender, as you’d expect from a guy standing 6-foot-4 and weighing 342 pounds. If you’re going to double-team Lawrence, as the Commanders started to do on this goal-line attempt by running back Antonio Gibson, you’d better stick with it. Here, center Keith Ismael peels off to deal with linebacker Tae Crowder’s blitz, and Lawrence has little trouble getting past right guard Brandon Scherff.
And if you want effort sacks, how about this takedown of Raiders quarterback Derek Carr in which Lawrence works away from the double-team and chases Carr down past the numbers?
Dexter Lawrence, baby. You love to see this kind of effort pressure from a 6-foot-2, 242-pound edge defender.
You LOVE to see it from a 6-foot-4, 342-pound nose tackle. pic.twitter.com/aivmqaqsZd
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) July 7, 2022
The Giants have a new defensive coordinator in former Ravens expert Don “Wink” Martindale, and though Patrick Graham was certainly an asset to the organization in that role, it’ll be highly interesting to see how Lawrence eats in Martindale’s line concepts, which are among the NFL’s blitz-heaviest.
Speaking of Giants draft picks… Big Blue took Hill out of North Carolina State with the 69th pick in the third round of the 2018 draft, and traded him to the Bengals in August, 2021 for offensive lineman Billy Price. White Price is a decent player, this trade weighed heavily in Cincinnati’s favor, as Hill had a breakout season for the AFC champs, which led to a new three-year, $30 million deal in March. Hill had been an underrated force before, but he had his best season to date in 2021 with eight sacks, eight quarterback hits, 22 quarterback hurries, and 30 stops. Hill was especially effective with fellow inside guy D.J. Reader — that duo became the spine of the Bengals’ defense.
Positional versatility was another part of Hill’s game in 2021 — he had 204 snaps over the tackles, and 32 snaps on the edge. Two of his sacks came from the edge, including this one against the Steelers in Week 3. Right tackle Chukwuma Okorafor has to deal with Hill (No. 92) on this play, and it doesn’t go well for him, as Hill just wears Okorafor down, and then catches up to Ben Roethlisberger.
And there’s this sack against the Vikings in Week 1, where Hill starts out on the edge, kicks inside to bully left guard Ezra Cleveland, and throws Kirk Cousins to the ground quite rudely.
If you want to see what Hill could do on the inside, here he is splitting a double-team of right tackle Tom Compton and right guard Daniel Brunskill to get to Jimmy Garoppolo much faster than Mr. Garoppolo would prefer.
With Hill, Reader, and edge-rushers Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard, Cincinnati has quite the formidable front four coming into 2022. Hill should be the epicenter of that front, wherever he lines up.
As much as we love positional versatility in our interior defensive linemen, there are times when you want a guy who can just come in and do HGTV-level demolition on any interior offensive line on a regular basis. Last season, no defensive lineman had more pressures inside the guards (0-tech to 2i) than Hargrave, who had six solo sacks, four knockdowns, 12 quarterback hits, and 14 quarterback hurries from right over the center to right over the guards.
Daniel Jones found out just how well Hargrave works inside on this Week 12 sack — especially when people forget to block him. Left guard Matt Skura pulled to the left, and center Billy Price rolled to the right to seal the edge. Which left nobody occupying Hargrave, as right guard Will Hernandez was doubling Fletcher Cox.
Creed Humphrey of the Chiefs put up a lot of Pro Bowl-level plays in his rookie season, but this Hargrave sack of Patrick Mahomes in Week 4 was not one of them. Here, Hargrave is aligned right over Humphrey’s head in a 0-tech look, and just out-speeds him to the quarterback, with minimal resistance applied by running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
Now that the Eagles have added Georgia alum and small planet Jordan Davis to their line, along with Cox back on a new one-year deal, it will be interesting to see how Hargrave is deployed. Hargrave lined up over the tackles on just 3% of his snaps last season, and he didn’t have anything outside the tackles. If Philly intends to put both Davis and Hargrave inside to wreck opposing guards and tackles… well, thoughts and prayers for the guys having to deal with it.
When Jordan Davis starts to the quarterback, things get complicated for Mr. Center. pic.twitter.com/duFOUDEjik
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 5, 2022
From 2018 through 2021, just six NFL players have more sacks than Buckner’s 36. Only five players have more tackles for loss than his 46, and only 10 players have more tackles for loss than his 78. Both the 49ers and Colts have benefited from Buckner’s excellence, and the only IDL who has been more on point than Buckner in all these categories is one Aaron Donald.
Last season, Buckner had nine sacks, 10 quarterback hits, 30 quarterback hurries, and 29 stops — not enough to put him in the top five (he ranked fourth in 2021), but another fine season nonetheless. The Colts didn’t have any other obvious alpha dogs on their defensive line in 2021, though Al-Quadin Muhammad, Kwity Paye and Grover Stewart stood out at times. This led to a lot of double-teams coming Buckner’s way, Which was a good idea, because dealing with Bucker one-on-one led to reps like this one from Buccaneers left guard Nick Leverett. You can see a little flinch as Buckner (No. 99) starts his movement, and things just went downhill for Tom Brady from there. Buckner’s speed to openings in protection is truly special.
And here’s what happens when that Colts defensive line is on point. In Week 1 against the Seahawks, Buckner shifted to an alignment head-up over center Ethan Pocic, which proved to be a very bad thing for Pocic. Guards Gabe Jackson and Damien Lewis were occupied by the five-man front, which left Pocic to deal with Buckner’s acceleration and technique. The result? A sack of Russell Wilson.
There aren’t many linemen who can do everything Buckner does from nose tackle to edge, especially at his size (6-foot-7, 295 pounds). With Paye coming into his second NFL season, and the addition of Yannick Ngakoue to bolster the edge, we could see a renaissance season from one of the best interior disruptors of his era.
Vea, selected by the Bucs with the 12th overall pick in the 2018 draft out of Washington, made his value apparent in his absence in the 2020 season. He missed all but five regular-season games due to injury, and Tampa Bay’s defense allowed 4.0 yards per carry when he was off the field, and 2.8 yards per carry when he was in there. Fortunately, he was back for a postseason that ended with the Bucs poleaxing the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV. Vea followed that up with a premiere game in the 2021 season in which he totally dominated the Cowboys without registering a single tackle.
Vea is a prime example of why box-score scouting can be a problem. In 2021, he had six sacks, nine quarterback hits, 33 quarterback hurries, and 27 stops. But when you watch the effect he has on his own defense — and every offensive line that has to deal with him — his status as one of the league’s best IDL is a no-brainer.
For a guy his size (6-foot-4, 347 pounds), Vea has an unusual combination of the power you’d expect, and short-area speed that basically makes him illegal to deal with. Rams left tackle Joseph Noteboom found this out in the divisional round of the playoffs, when Vea (No. 70) jumped from inside to outside Noteboom on a stunt, and then just collapsed everything on the way to Matthew Stafford.
Vea was double-teamed on 233 of his snaps last season, and he came up with three sacks and 17 pressures when opponents did that. Here, in Week 16, Panthers left guard Michael Jordan and left tackle Brady Christensen discovered that even when you have two guys on Vea, the likelihood of him crashing through to the pocket is pretty high — especially when your blockers have to start peeling off to deal with the blitz.
In January, the Bucs gave Vea a four-year, $73 million contract extension, because they know exactly what it means when Vea’s on the field — and when he’s not.
Allen is one of four first-round picks on Washington’s defensive line, along with Daron Payne, Montez Sweat, and Chase Young. Whether inside or outside, Allen was by far the most productive of those players in 2021, amassing 10 sacks, 14 quarterback hits, 43 quarterback hurries, and 32 stops. He was also effectively versatile, with 76 snaps in the A-gap, 386 snaps in the B-gap, 298 over the tackles, and 11 outside the tackles.
If you’ve ever heard the football phrase, “Rolling ball of butcher knives,” that’s a pretty good description of what the 6-foot-3, 300-pound Allen (No. 93) did in Week 7 to Packers left tackle Elgton Jenkins and left guard Jon Runyan. Both Jenkins and Runyan are more than credible blockers, but they did not appear to be so after what Allen did to them on this Aaron Rodgers sack.
And if you want a guy who can slip gaps with alarming quickness? No problem there. Against the Broncos in Week 8, Allen started outside left guard Dalton Risner, and then bounced inside to seal the edge against center Lloyd Cushenberry III. That led to Allen working inside, sacking a very surprised Teddy Bridgewater.
It could be said that Washington’s defense underperformed to its talent in 2021, which could be one of a number of Jack Del Rio problems. But if ever a guy proved to be scheme-transcendent and coach-proof, it’s Allen — who will continue to be an absolute force inside and out.
When you look at the ways in which Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst and his staff have assembled the team’s current defense, it’s easy to be optimistic. From front to back, there are few defenses as stacked at this one, and it might be the thing that sends the Pack back to its first Super Bowl since the end of the 2010 season.
How the Packers’ defense could get Green Bay to Super Bowl LVII
Clark, selected with the 27th pick in the 2016 draft out of UCLA, has been a relative constant for a Packers defense that has changed its linemen around him pretty regularly. And the positive vibes surrounding the team’s defense in 2022 should start with No. 97, bashing away at every blocker he faces. In 2021, Clark had four sacks, 11 quarterback hits, 53 quarterback hurries, and 31 stops. Dean Lowry and Kingley Keke were decent interior reinforcements inside last season, but everybody playing the Packers knows that if you can’t take care of Clark, your offense is going to sag a bit.
On this sack of Jimmy Garoppolo in the divisional round, Clark started by beating up center Alex Mack, and then turned his attention to left guard Laken Tomlinson. That’s two pretty good offensive linemen who had no real answer for Clark’s hand technique and blunt-trauma force.
In Week 5, the Bengals tried to mitigate Clark’s power by sliding and scrumming things up to help their perpetually overwhelmed offensive line. Generally speaking, it did not work. On this one-yard loss by running back Joe Mixon, it really didn’t work — because Clark can shoot through gaps as quickly as just about anybody on this list.
“Double Kenny Clark and single everybody else” used to be common, if inconsistent strategy. But with the additions of Jarran Reed in free agency, and Georgia alum Devonte Wyatt in the draft (along with Lowry still on the roster), teams are going to have to do quite a bit to deal with everything the Pack brings from inside the tackles. Which means more opportunities for Clark to dominate, and more bad news for Clark’s opponents.
In the first few games of the 2021 season, the Chiefs decided to solve their edge-rushing deficits by moving Jones from more permanent IDL spots. where he had been dominant for a number of years, to the edge.
I opined that this would be a good idea.
While Jones had some good games in that role — especially against the Eagles in Week 4 — Kansas City’s defense started to get back into shape when Jones moved back inside, and the Chiefs traded for edge-rusher Melvin Ingram in early November. The Chiefs went from 31st to ninth in overall Defensive DVOA in the second half of the season — from 27th to 11th against the pass, and from 28th to 11th against the run. The combination of Jones and Ingram made all the difference, especially when they worked together.
Chris Jones and Melvin Ingram meet at Derek Carr on a stunt. Steve Spagnuolo recently said that his defense is playing "angry" ever since Ingram arrived. pic.twitter.com/2mtntLYGD7
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) December 12, 2021
It’s not that Jones (No. 95) can’t play outside — he’s a force wherever you line him up. But he’s just so much better inside. Then, there are times when he plays outside and inside, and what are you supposed to do with that?
This sack of Dak Prescott in Week 11 was a seriously bad rep for Cowboys right tackle La’El Collins. If you’re going to hold up a player of Jones’ talent, you’d better get your hands out in a hurry. If you don’t, your quarterback is in very big trouble.
Second verse, pretty similar to the first. Here, Jones bulls left guard Connor McGovern into the pocket, and then chases Prescott out of bounds.
And just to prove that his multi-gap effectiveness wasn’t something that Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo cooked up in his head, here’s Jones flying past Browns right tackle Jack Conklin on the way to Baker Mayfield before Conklin can get his hands up. Not bad for a guy standing 6-foot-6 and weighing around 300 pounds on any given day.
The hope for the Chiefs is that their defensive line rotation is strong enough to allow Jones to eat as he does — the addition of first-round hybrid lineman George Karlaftis should help to a point, though the loss of Ingram to the Dolphins will be a hit. But wherever he lines up, Jones will continue to bedevil linemen and quarterbacks throughout the 2022 season.
Heyward was our second-best IDL last year — or as we like to say, the NFL’s best IDL, non-Aaron Donald edition. He moves to third this time around more because Jeffery Simmons of the Titans had a thermonuclear season and lapped everybody but Donald, but we could also argue that Heyward was even more impressive in 2021 than he was in 2020. Heyward had 11 sacks, seven quarterback hits, 43 quarterback hurries, and 47 stops, and this was all without Stephon Tuitt, his former IDL linemate who missed the entire 2021 season and then retired.
Heyward was obviously helped by the efforts of edge-rusher T.J. Watt, but he also had to do some superhuman stuff in the middle of that defense with Tuitt out of the picture. This is one reason the Steelers acquired former Bengals and Browns lineman Larry Ogunjobi in June; Ogunjobi may not be Tuitt, but he does provide an upgrade.
The Steelers were running a front without Watt on this Week 18 Heyward sack of Lamar Jackson, and as you can see, Heyward (No. 97) is the only lineman who gets any real penetration — despite a double-team. Left end Isaiahh Loudermilk missed Jackson as he moved to the edge to get out of Heyward’s way, but Heyward was right there to clean up the mess — something he had to do far too often last season.
On this sack of Russell Wilson in Week 6, Heyward showed how well he can move through slide protection. Left guard Damien Lewis tried to move Heyward out of the picture against his own momentum, and Heyward just blew the whole thing up — as is his wont.
In 2021, Heyward made his second All-Pro team in the last three years, and his third in the last five. He’s starting to build up a pretty decent future Hall of Fame resume at age 33, and it’s possible that with better reinforcements alongside him, the best is yet to come.
Simmons missed our top 11 list last season, but he really crashed the party this time around after a season in which he totaled 14 sacks, five quarterback hits, 47 quarterback hurries, and 49 stops. The additions to Tennessee’s defensive line of Bud Dupree and (especially) Denico Autry helped, but there were more than enough instances in which Simmons simply took games over on his own.
Perhaps the most obvious example was his Week 9 performance against the eventual Super Bowl champion Rams. Simmons had three sacks, one quarterback hit, five quarterback hurries, and five stops. Nobody on the Rams’ offensive line had an answer for him.
Here, Simmons (No. 98) blasted through the efforts of left tackle Andrew Whitworth…
…and here, Simmons just bulls left guard David Edwards right back into Matthew Stafford’s kitchen.
Simmons also has the agility to just ride right around half an offensive line from a nose tackle start, as he showed in this Week 1 sack of Arizona’s Kyler Murray.
The Titans exercised Simmons’ fifth-year option in April, and in 2022, he’ll be playing in the fourth year of his rookie deal for the princely base salary of $2,221,875. Sooner than later, Simmons’ team will have to pay him what he’s worth as a player, and that’s going to be a spicy meatball — because he’s become one of the NFL’s best defensive players, regardless of position.
(Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
With 43 seconds left in Super Bowl LVI, the Rams had a 23-20 lead, but the Bengals had the ball at the Los Angeles 49-yard line. Someone needed to make a play to wrap up the second Super Bowl win in franchise history, and head coach Sean McVay had a pretty good idea who that someone needed to be.
Sean McVay said in his postgame press conference that as soon as the Bengals lined up in shotgun, he knew Aaron Donald was going to make a play. McVay was mic'd up as it unfolded.
"Aaron Donald's gonna make a play."
(via @NFLFilms)pic.twitter.com/DQWNwauXYz
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) February 14, 2022
This doesn’t confirm any predictive abilities on McVay’s part; when you have Aaron Donald on your defense, making plays is part of the program all the time. And as usual, the NFL’s best defensive player lived up to the reputation. No IDL had more sacks than Donald’s 19, nobody had more quarterback hits than his 15, nobody had more quarterback hurries than his 75 (Chris Jones ranked second with 57), and the fact that Donald also led the league among IDLs with 58 stops tells you all you need to know about the occasional and ridiculous canard that he can’t stop the run. Aaron Donald can do whatever he wants; it’s his world, and the rest of the NFL is just paying homage.
We could pick from all kinds of plays indicating just how dominant Donald is, but there are few better reps than this sack against the Cardinals in Week 14. Donald is lined up angled outside right guard Max Garcia. At the snap, Donald pushes Garcia into quarterback Kyler Murray, who tries to bail out of the damage, but simply falls down and braces for the inevitable.
If you want to know how well Donald plays the run, you can ask Elijah Mitchell of the 49ers, who had to deal with Donald jumping three gaps on a stunt to create a one-yard loss in Week 18.
Donald made some nebulous noise about retirement after he won his first ring, but the Rams wisely put an end to that with a three-year, $95 million contract re-do that makes him the highest-paid non-quarterback in the history of professional football.
Because we are not quarterbacks, running backs, or offensive linemen, we can say that we’re very happy to see more of Aaron Donald over the next few years. It’s not exaggeration or cliché to say that we won’t see his like again for a very long time.
D.J. Jones, Denver Broncos
Greg Gaines, Los Angeles Rams
Christian Barmore, New England Patriots
Leonard Williams, New York Giants
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Touchdown Wire's Mark Schofield concludes our position lists for the 2022 season with the NFL's 12 best quarterbacks.
Who says running backs don't matter? Not Doug Farrar, who lists the 11 best backs in the NFL today, from Damien Harris to Jonathan Taylor.
Touchdown Wire's Mark Schofield continues our position lists with the NFL's 16 (!) best outside receivers.
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