Colts' Yannick Ngakoue Should Earn New Contract with Team in 2023

Indianapolis Colts defensive end Yannick Ngakoue has played well enough to earn a new contract with the team in 2023.

Consistent play at any position is difficult to find in the NFL.

The Indianapolis Colts have displayed this as a team throughout the first thirteen games of the regular season. However, newly-acquired defensive end Yannick Ngakoue has been just that, consistent. Not just this season, but his entire career, putting him in a group of names that include All-Pros and Hall-of-Famers.

“He’s doing a good job," Colts defensive coordinator Gus Bradley said of Ngakoue recently. "I’ve seen him really grow through the year. He’s really working hard at it. He’s taking extra reps in practice...

"It’s good to see that his hard work is coming to fruition some and he’s becoming a more well-rounded player versus the run, versus the pass. He’s a guy that’s just like everybody else, he wants more. But it was great to see that he had the big play for us last week.”

It’s time to run down how good Ngakoue is and why the Colts need him to be on the opposite side of fellow edge rusher Kwity Paye for the foreseeable future.

In the 2022 offseason, the Colts dealt cornerback Rock Ya-Sin to the Las Vegas Raiders in exchange for Ngakoue. The veteran pass rusher was entering the final year of his two-year, $21 million contract, meaning that the Colts would need to decide whether to keep Ngakoue or allow him to test free agency. So far, he’s proven why the Colts should choose the former.

In a rocky season for the team, Ngakoue has proven to be the pillar of quiet chaos, racking up a team-high 8.5 sacks. He even recorded 2.0 sacks against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 12 to become just the fifth player in NFL history to record 8.0 or more sacks in his first seven seasons.

This put him alongside four legends of the sport: Hall-of-Famers Reggie White and Derrick Thomas as well as Aaron Donald and DeMarcus Ware. That’s a pretty good company to be in when you’re only 27 years old.

Applying pressure.#ProBowlVote x @YannickNgakoue pic.twitter.com/54nr1LOPqR

— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) December 1, 2022

Another fact to mention is that Ngakoue has reached this feat without much consistency in where he plays, spending time with the Jacksonville Jaguars (2016-19), Minnesota Vikings (2020), Baltimore Ravens (2020), and Raiders (2021). With all of the jumping around between teams over the last three seasons, he has still been the same edge rusher that can ruin an opponent's blind side.

To place a few more numbers in the case of Ngakoue, he is No. 1 on the Colts in quarterback pressures (37), tied for first in hits (7), and second in hurries (19). Join these statistics with his sack numbers and you have exactly what the Colts need.

With a young defensive end in Paye, it is a great help to place Ngakoue on the other side of the line and pinch quarterbacks into the defensive front, creating turnovers and sacks. Ngakoue has also performed well in the absence of Paye, who missed five games this year before returning two weeks ago against the Dallas Cowboys.

Ngakoue has been all over with different teams in recent seasons; it is time for the Colts to be wise and sign one of the NFL's most consistent defensive linemen to give him a home and let him grow within the organization.

Ngakoue quietly places pressure on opposing linemen and quarterbacks game in and game out, forcing good things to happen for a Colts team that needs it, desperately.

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