You can contact Dr. Rush by calling 1-833-222-SACK, a number he registered personally with the phone company in Atlanta.
And on the first day of specialized training with pass-rush instructor Chuck Smith (the name on Dr. Rush’s driver’s license), he’ll ask you to toe the end zone, walk you out to the 5-yard line and turn you back in the direction you came. Five yards, or the typical distance from a pass rusher’s starting point to the quarterback, is all that matters. Then, he’ll walk you out to the 10-yard line and inform you that if you ran this far on a play, you likely missed the quarterback altogether. He’ll walk you out to the 40-yard line, the distance most of his collegiate prospects spend draft season worrying about, and ask: Who among you has ever run this far to sack a quarterback?
Point taken.
While this all might feel a little tawdry, like a modernized Tom Emanski VHS skills and drills pitch, it’s anything but. Especially now. Smith, who played nine NFL seasons and spent time postcareer as a coach with the Jets, Ravens and University of Tennessee, is sought out by players all over the country who find themselves punching S-A-C-K into their phone’s keypad. He works regularly with Steelers All-Pro Cam Heyward and Raiders edge rusher Maxx Crosby, now one of the richest players in professional football. Von Miller considers him his personal Phil Jackson, and Aaron Donald says Smith taught him one of his most potent moves, the club chop. “If quarterback is the most important position, [the player] stopping him, a pass rusher, must be the second most,” Dr. Rush says.
When specialized predraft pass-rush training, which mimics the cottage quarterbacking industry popularized by Tom House, Steve Clarkson, George Whitfield and Jordan Palmer, went mainstream, the choice for an industry superstar—its first doctoral graduate—was obvious. Smith’s phone line is constantly tied up because pass rushing is having a moment. Ten of the 11 highest-paid defensive players in the NFL are categorized as some variety of pass rusher. The great ones make more than $20 million per year and, in 2022, even the mediocre ones saw their prices soar like some animal-themed cryptocurrency.
That’s because recent developments in the NFL have changed the perception of the position and upped the urgency to secure a pass rush. In an effort to slow down a generation of superhero quarterbacks—think Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert—defenses have largely abandoned blitzing in favor of coverage, hoping to stymie offenses by flooding the secondary with cornerbacks, safeties and linebackers. That means edge rushers need to win more consistently, carrying the burden of pressuring quarterbacks all on their own.
The Rams won a Super Bowl because of their pass rush. The Bengals made a Super Bowl thanks in large part to the signing of free-agent edge rusher Trey Hendrickson to pair with Sam Hubbard; in their second-half shutdown of Mahomes’s Chiefs in the AFC title game, the Bengals often rushed only three and dropped eight players into coverage.
The 2022 draft class is being welcomed by executives desperate to find pass-rushing talent. Aidan Hutchinson and Kayvon Thibodeaux could be the top-two picks. Travon Walker, Jermaine Johnson and George Karlaftis could all go in the top 15. Trent Baalke, the top personnel executive in Jacksonville, said he viewed this pass-rush class as brimming with talent into the third round. Smith thinks it’s even deeper.
When asked about Hutchinson and Thibodeaux in particular, the two rushers likely to come off the board first, one personnel executive used one of the most generous descriptors in the scouting football-guy lexicon: “Real Dudes.”
How did we arrive here? At a time when a pass-rushing academy has its own hotline? When the waitlist for pass-rush help seems longer than the one for an elite Brooklyn Heights preschool? When, at the scouting combine in Indianapolis, general managers expressed concern about overpaying for premium veteran talent but soon did so, anyway? When a draft that lacks a surefire quarterback might still be one of the most consequential collegiate crops to enter the NFL in almost a decade?
If there is a pass-rush academy, there must also exist pass-rush economics. Consider this a crash course. If you learn only one thing: Nothing is more valuable than the pass rushers headlining this draft class.
