Inside The Bills

Marcell rated a top 10 nose tackle

Posted by Chris Brown on October 29, 2013 – 11:31 am

Bills DT Marcell Dareus is on pace to have his most productive NFL season. So it’s not surprising to see him ranked in the top 10 among NFL nose/defensive tackles in a 3-4 system.

Pro Football Focus has Dareus ranked 10th in the league in terms of performance through the first half of the season. As the chart below shows, Dareus is tied for the most sacks of those listed in the top 10 with five and leads by a wide margin in tackles. In fairness that’s due in part to the 501 snaps he’s played so far this season as Buffalo’s defense has been on the field a lot.

“I think he’s playing really well, I really do,” said head coach Doug Marrone. “You got a big guy like that and you watch him, like the Miami game, sideline to sideline, you don’t really see that. He’s a special type of player. He’s being very, very productive. We can move him around, he has that ability where we can match him up on people. I’m extremely happy with what he’s done. I always know he’s going to be OK when he has a smile and his face and he’s running around—I
know it’s going to be a good day.”

If Dareus keeps up his current pace he figures to garner Pro Bowl consideration. Here’s where you can vote as a fan.

#	Name	Team	Snaps	Overall	Rush	Cov.	Run	Pen.	QB Sk	QB Ht	QB Hu	Tks	Ass	St
1	Damon Harrison	NYJ	248	21.7	-1.5	1.0	22.3	-0.1	1	0	5	17	6	18
2	Jason Hatcher	DAL	440	20.9	20.9	0.0	-0.7	0.7	7	6	22	15	4	19
3	Gerald McCoy	TB	412	20.7	14.7	1.0	5.4	-0.4	2	7	20	9	1	10
4	Geno Atkins	CIN	443	19.9	12.2	0.0	6.0	1.7	5	8	19	5	1	8
5	Randy Starks	MIA	320	18.4	13.1	-0.5	5.4	0.4	3	6	18	12	3	11
6	Jurrell Casey	TEN	408	16.9	11.7	1.0	3.6	0.6	4	3	17	16	1	16
7	Brandon Mebane	SEA	281	16.6	0.0	0.5	15.1	1.0	0	1	11	12	9	11
8	Ndamukong Suh	DET	457	16.3	16.3	0.5	2.8	-3.3	3	6	29	16	4	17
9	Dontari Poe	KC	501	14.8	5.2	0.0	7.7	1.9	5	1	17	19	2	17
10	Marcell Dareus	BUF	428	11.8	3.0	1.5	7.8	-0.5	5	2	13	29	6	29