NFL free agency preview: Yannick Ngakoue is legit — even if his movers think otherwise

Free agency begins March 17. Who are the best players available? And will the Dolphins make a play for them? We explore in this series of player profiles ahead of the league new year.

Yannick Ngakoue

2020 team: Baltimore Ravens.

Position: Edge defender.

Age: 25.

ESPN free agent ranking: 6.

2020 stats: Fifteen games (eight starts), eight sacks, 23 tackles (seven for loss), 11 quarterback hits, four forced fumbles, 70.0 Pro Football Focus grade.

2020 salary: $5.2 million.

Market value (per Spotrac): Four years, $62.4 million.

Player summary: Usually, when a 25-year-old player goes to a fourth team in seven months, he’s a long shot to even make it to training camp. But Yannick Ngakoue is no normal player. He’s a really good one who successfully forced a trade out of a losing organization (Jacksonville) last August, and then got later moved by his new team (Minnesota) to an even better one (Baltimore) at the trade deadline. The Vikings only shipped Ngakoue because their season stunk. The Ravens, meanwhile, seem to really like him and have the cap space ($29 million) to get a long-term deal done. If not, it will probably be time to call the movers, once again.

Likelihood he joins the Dolphins: Low. The Dolphins’ pass rush was much improved in 2020, ranking 13th in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus. And they did it more with scheme than elite personnel. There’s no reason to think that will change in 2021, considering their top seven pass rushers (Emmanuel Ogbah, Jerome Baker, Kyle Van Noy, Andrew Van Ginkel, Shaq Lawson, Zach Sieler and Christian Wilkins) are all under contract.

Quotable: “We were fortunate, we were six-deep this year and we had a stable of guys and we could roll different guys out based on the teams that we were playing We love that versatility, we love the fact that we had 12 legitimate pieces in the front seven this year that we could roll out on game day, in terms of defensive line and outside linebackers. We may not have that this year. We may have some turnover on the roster; we understand that. Again, the salary cap sometimes dictates the players that you can have on the team.” — Baltimore Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta.

This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 11:56 AM.

Adam H. Beasley

Miami Herald

305-376-2387

Adam Beasley has covered the Dolphins for the Miami Herald since 2012, and has worked for the newspaper since 2006. He is a graduate of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Communications and has written about sports professionally since 1996. Support my work with a digital subscription