The NFL has Rookie of the Month honors on offense and defense, and while it’s easy to give Commander quarterback Jayden Daniels the offensive nod in September, it’s hard to find a rookie’s impact on the defensive side of the ball.
If you remember, the 2024 NFL Draft had no defensive players selected among the 14 picks, so from the beginning, there was no expectation of a splash pass-rusher or a lockdown corner in this class. And after four weeks, so have the rookies – 19 rookies have played in 70% of their offensive snaps this season, but only seven rookies have played 70% or more on defense.
No first-round picks have more than one sack, and no rookies have more than one interception. To find the NFL’s leading rookie defensive tackle in anything, you’d have to turn to Lions cornerback Terrion Arnold, who leads the league with 118 penalty yards in his first four games. Pro Football Focus hasn’t been kind to him, ranking him 94th out of 97 quarterbacks so far this season.
If you had to pick a Defensive Rookie of the Month for September, you’d make a good case for Rams defensive lineman Jared Verse, the leader of a deep rookie class in Los Angeles. He has five tackles for loss, the most among rookies, and a sack among his 19 tackles. PFF ranks him as the league’s No. 16 rusher, one spot ahead of Colts teammate Laiatu Latu.
Verse and former Florida State teammate Braden Fiske, the Rams’ second-round pick, were a solid 1-2 punch up front. Fiske got his first career sack and forced a sack on rookie Caleb Williams in Sunday’s loss to the Bears. Due to injuries, the Rams now have 18 players on the 53-man roster – many pressed into service. With top receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua sidelined with injuries, sixth-rounder Jordan Whittington played all but two snaps Sunday and led the Rams with six catches for 62 yards.
Two other rookies in the middle should be mentioned on the defensive side: Cowboys linebacker DeMarvion Overshown, the third overall pick out of Texas, leads all rookies with 29 tackles, and Seahawks linebacker Tyrice Knight , UTEP’s fourth pick, is not. far behind with 22 tackles in the last three games since stepping into the senior role.
McConkey added the Chargers
The five rookie scorers already have multiple hits, and the non-starter for the team is Chargers second baseman Ladd McConkey, who scored his second goal in LA’s loss to the Chiefs on Sunday.
Jim Harbaugh runs the offense first, but McConkey leads the team in receptions (15) and receiving yards (176) and caught two touchdown passes from Justin Herbert. There is a void after the departures of long-time Chargers stars Keenan Allen (Bears) and Mike Williams (Jets), but McConkey has been more productive than both of them with their new teams thus far.
It won’t take much for McConkey to have one of the best rookie receiving seasons in Chargers history. Only twice has a Charger rookie had 700 receiving yards, Allen’s 1,046 in 2013 and John Jefferson’s 1,001 in 1978.
Bring in the rookie kickers
The NFL has five or so first-year kickers, and some have been busy in the first month of the season. The Rams’ Josh Karty, a sixth-round pick out of Stanford, is already 9-for-10 on field goals, while the Packers’ Brayden Narveson, a waiver claim from the Titans, is 9-for-13 on field goals.
Nine goals in four weeks takes his tally to 38 for the full season. That’s the NFL rookie record for field goals, set by Harrison Butker of the Chiefs in just 13 games in 2017. Brandon Aubrey of the Cowboys was close last year with 36, and he owns the NFL freshman scoring record with 157 points. Narveson, currently at 153 points, could also challenge that.
Instruments to create a line that can be exclusive
Pittsburgh set the bar impossibly high for impact from one draft. Fifty years ago, the Steelers drafted four Hall of Fame players in one class, getting Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth and Mike Webster in 1974.
We’ll forgo any comparisons to that class, but the Steelers used their top three picks this year on offensive linemen, and in the last month of the season, three have started games. Second-rounder Zach Frazier might be the best offensive lineman in this draft, and first-rounder Troy Fautanu was a starter until he tore his kneecap, an injury that likely sidelined him for the rest of the regular season.
And on Sunday, the Steelers started rookie Mason McCormick, their fourth-round pick out of South Dakota State. He had to step in cautiously against the Colts after James Daniels was sidelined with an Achilles tendon injury. Pittsburgh is now 3-1, so that means a team with playoff aspirations will try to make the postseason with two rookies on the offensive line. Dallas is trying something similar.
It’s a mess in the immediate future, but long term, the idea of ​​having so many cheap guards on their rookie contracts can be huge for the next three years before they’re even allowed to be paid top dollar for a second contract.
Dropping a lot of rookie names
PFF’s highest-rated rookie at any position in Week 4 was Titans defensive end T’Vondre Sweat, their second-round pick out of Texas. He had six tackles and two TFLs in Tennessee’s win over Miami on Monday night, looking like a front-runner. … Seahawks tight end AJ Barner, their fourth-round pick out of Michigan, had his first career touchdown on a 9-yard pass to Geno Smith in Monday’s loss to the Lions. That matches his total last season with the Wolverines after three seasons in Indiana. … Dolphins corner Storm Duck, who has the coolest name in the rookie class, played 60 snaps Monday, the most for an undrafted rookie. Her given name is actually Storm, a nod from her mother to the character from “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Duck already has 10 points in his first month in the league.
Greg Auman is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent ten years covering the The Buccaneers Of course Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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