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Cincinnati Bengals Film Breakdown: Can Myles Murphy Bolster Pass Rush With More Snaps?

The Bengals took Murphy in the first round (28th overall) in the 2023 NFL Draft.

Mike Santagata

Nov 3, 2024; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Las Vegas Raiders offensive tackle DJ Glaze (71) pushes against Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Myles Murphy (99) in the second half at Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Katie Stratman-Imagn Images
Nov 3, 2024; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Las Vegas Raiders offensive tackle DJ Glaze (71) pushes against Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Myles Murphy (99) in the second half at Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Katie Stratman-Imagn Images / Katie Stratman-Imagn Images
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The Bengals selected Myles Murphy in the first round (28th overall) in the 2023 NFL Draft.

The second-year pro has three sacks in his 1.5 year career. All of those sacks came in his rookie season. This year he’s played 157 snaps (37% of the possible snaps), while last year he only played 305 snaps (28% of the possible snaps).

So what is going on with Murphy?

He was a first round pick for a reason and the team has gone from singing his praises after the draft to having him come off the bench as the clear fourth defensive end.

Let’s dig into the data first, then we'll take a look at the film:

Knee Injury and Recovery

Murphy suffered a knee injury that then put him onto injured reserve. That injury sidelined him through the first four weeks of the season. Even though he came back in Week 5 against the Ravens, he didnt look like he was healthy.

First, we have his get off numbers which measures how fast Murphy was firing off the snap. His average get off through the first 3 weeks back after injury was 0.923 seconds. The average across the entire NFL is 0.88 for edge rushers. The past three weeks (Weeks 8-10) his average get off has been 0.754 seconds. For context, Trey Hendrickson's average get off is 0.76 seconds for the season.

A 0.75 would be the sixth-best get off in the entire NFL looking at qualified defenders. That seems to be a pretty heavy indicator that you’re looking at an injury limiting him for the first three weeks that he has played.

Now let’s look at some underlying production numbers. Murphy doesn’t have any sacks on the season, but he does have pressures. Murphy has 12 pressures on 88 pass rushing opportunities. That’s good for a 13.6% pressure percentage and his average time to pressure is 3.04 seconds.

Let’s look at this in the three week splits since his return from injury. In both splits he has six pressures, but he’s done much more with less over the past three games. His pressure percentage for the first 3 weeks is 9.52%. That jumped up to 24% over the past three games.

Murphy is already second on the team in pressure percentage but 24% is actually even higher than Hendrickson this season. His time to pressure is faster at 2.97 compared to 3.12, despite accumulating an unblocked pressure in the first three weeks. That all seems like some pretty solid evidence that Murphy was hampered by his injury, even after his return in Week 5.

Despite all of his numbers looking better as a pass rusher over the past 3 weeks, Murphy played 100 of his 157 snaps in Weeks 5-7. Since then he’s seen less snaps every week. He's gone from from 34 to 23 to 20 to a season-low 14 snaps in Week 10. That’s affected his pass rushing opportunities as well. He went from having an average of 21 pass rushing opportunities per game in his first three games of the season to just eight pass rushing opportunities per game in his past three weeks.

EDGE Comparison

Murphy's decrease in snaps has worked simultaneously with a rise in Joseph Ossai’s usage over the past three games. Ossai has been on the field 71 snaps over that span compared to Murphy’s 57. He’s also seen an average of 13 pass rushing opportunities per game, which is five more on average than Murphy (8).

Ossai has improved as a pass rusher over the past few games, racking up seven pressures and posting a pressure percentage of 17.9%. Those are pretty good numbers, but they aren't as good as Murphy’s when looking at a per snap basis.

Sam Hubbard is also getting plenty of work, logging 95 snaps and an average of 13.7 pass rushes per game over the past three weeks. Hubbard has forced 2 pressures over that span. That’s good for a pressure percentage of 4.88%. His get off over the past three weeks is currently at 1.06 seconds.

It’s not as if he doesn’t see the field on obvious passing downs either: 19 of his pass rushes the past 3 weeks have come in traditional passing downs (1st and extra long, 2nd and long, or 3rd and medium or longer), which is about 46% of his pass rushes.

Ossai has had 25 opportunities on passing downs (64%) and Murphy has had 12 opportunities on passing downs (48%). While Ossai may have an advantage of seeing more of his pass rushes come on passing downs, it’s not great enough for the difference in pass rushing quality, and he’s actually seen more passing down opportunities than Murphy currently is. 

It seems clear that Murphy and Ossai are on similar footing the past few weeks. Per snap the edge may go to Murphy, but Ossai also has a quicker time to pressure at the moment. Both of those young pass rushers are far and away more effective than Hubbard currently is. Hubbard provides the best run defense of the three pass rushers, but he’s also a complete non-factor as a pass rusher.

There does not seem to be a reason for Hubbard to see more passing downs snaps than Murphy or Ossai.

It’s actively hurting this defense because they also are not getting anything in the interior. Sheldon Rankins currently has a 2% pressure rate on the season and has 151 pass rushes. Kris Jenkins Jr. is sitting at 2.6% on 115 pass rushes. B.J. Hill has an above average pressure rate (9.9%) but the only other interior defender who is in the same camp is McKinnley Jackson (11.5%), who has only rushed the passer on 52 plays. It seems like it’s past time to give some of the younger guys more opportunities than the vets who are doing nothing as pass rushers.

Myles Murphy Pass Rushing

There have been signs of life for Murphy as a pass rusher these past three weeks. It makes sense that a nagging injury that limits his explosiveness would hurt Murphy a lot as a pass rusher. Murphy is a player where everything hinges on his ability to get off the line of scrimmage.

This hump move to the inside is the best example of his get off providing him an opportunity to win as a pass rusher:

The offensive tackle needs to open his hips to reach Murphy because he is losing the race. Once the tackle opens his hips, Murphy can then use a move to win back inside. Here he uses a hump move made famous by Reggie White. This gets him a clean win and a hit on the quarterback.

This time he uses a swipe move to win around the outside. It’s important to beat the hands of the offensive tackle if you’re going to win around the outside so that they cannot recover and push you around the arc. He doesn’t finish it with a sack, but avoiding sacks is one of Lamar Jackson’s super powers.

Here you get a speed to power move from Murphy to try to pry open the inside shoulder of the offensive tackle. It’s pretty effective and he’s able to get Jackson to flush out of the pocket into the waiting arms of Hendrickson, who misses the sack. It seems like on this play Murphy is supposed to win to the inside and Hendrickson is supposed to win outside so that Jackson is in a bit of a trap. You have the two defensive ends at different levels so that the quarterback should not be able to step up or roll out. Jackson breaks the rules of the defense though because he’s an incredible player.

This play is also one that’s worth critiquing. While it’s a pressure I think Murphy can refine his speed to power move. He is a little bit high on the point of contact and he does not reach full extension with his arm until later in the play. Watch Jason Pierre-Paul hit the same move late in his career:

He uses a full extension to better utilize his length and he’s very low to the ground compared to the offensive tackle. Murphy won the rep but against better tackles he might not get as much movement. He needs to better utilize leverage and length to make this move an even more consistent and effective move.

His inconsistent leverage has been an issue for his bull rush so far this season. Murphy needs to get his hands above his eyes directly into the shoulder or chest of the offensive lineman depending on if he’s trying to bull through them or open up the inside shoulder. He could also stand to recognize the offensive tackle opening their hips and oversetting more often.

Another hump move to the inside here would most likely be more effective than just trying to rip to the outside. The offensive tackle is opening his hips early to recover against Murphy's speed. With the back releasing his way, it’s not likely that Murphy will be able to win around the outside on this play. Late in the pass rush he recognizes that he needs to work inside but it’s too late. If he can start to recognize that quicker then he can convert more of these into wins.

The only way for him to start to recognize this quicker is to get more reps though. Currently he’s losing reps and barely getting on the field for pass rushing opportunities.

Run Defense

The best run defense for Murphy is when he gets to use his get off to beat the offensive line off of the ball.

These plays lead to him being more of a chaos creator than a consistent run defender which the Bengals don’t really have and have not traditionally valued either. He does his job setting the edge against a lot of runs when he is outside of the offensive tackle as well.

Murphy doesn't set the hardest edge, but it’s enough to dissuade a bounce from the back and he even comes back across the tackle’s face to get involved in the run stop afterward. He clearly has the physical ability to play on the field on run downs with his size, length, strength, and athletic ability. Where he can run into issues is recognizing double teams either by formation or off the snap.

Murphy is late to recognize and react to the double team here and it ends with him getting knocked back into Germaine Pratt allowing a touchdown. There should be alarm bells going off in his head whenever he is reduced down inside of the tight end that he may see a double team on this play. It’s something that should get better with time and reps but at the moment is an issue that has persisted with him since college.

Another area of run defense that has not been good enough has been Murphy's surf technique:

Surf technique is the defense trying to have the unblocked end play both the back and the quarterback on a read play. The end needs to play square and reduce down enough that they can make a play on the back but also be in position and ready to chase the quarterback if they keep the ball. On this play Murphy takes one too many steps inside and is not balanced enough to quickly redirect back to the quarterback on the keep. It ends up in a touchdown and it’s on Murphy.

Maybe Murphy’s slow recognition of double teams and inefficient surf technique have been the reason he’s seen less snaps over the past three weeks, but these are both areas of the game that get better with playing time. At least theoretically they should get better when he sees them more often and gets live game reps of trying to play against them.

The positives that he brings on run defense to create chaos with his get off don’t seem to be valued that much by this coaching staff either. The issue for him is an issue that’s classic with NFL coaching staffs. They aren’t in the business of making sure he gets better, they’re in the business of trying to get the best results. Currently it’s one of the worst defenses in the entire NFL, despite the offense giving them good field position and time of possession, so I’m not sure how well that’s working.

None of the issues in run defense explain why he’s not seeing the field on passing downs either. He’s seen less passing downs snaps than Hubbard or Ossai and he’s been more effective than either of them.

Murphy has actually seen more mixed downs than passing downs over the past three weeks. Every game they play against a competent quarterback has ended with them getting their teeth kicked in because they can’t get any pressure to mask the miscommunications, missed assignments, and shoddy coverage on the back end. It’s past time to make Hubbard a run down only defender and to give Murphy more snaps to rush the passer.

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Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

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