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New York Times
3 minutes ago
- New York Times
The NFL's most efficient pass rusher is a player you've probably never heard of
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — When Kaden Elliss gets his game plan each week, he immediately skims it to look for the arrows. For each defensive call, the player's responsibility is listed right by his position on the field. The arrow means 'go get the quarterback.' There are no other responsibilities. Just go get that guy. Advertisement 'It's just got an arrow. 'Go that way,'' Elliss said. 'I love seeing that.' As Elliss enters his seventh NFL season, his coaches are putting more and more arrows on his sheet, and maybe there should be even more. The Atlanta Falcons inside linebacker leads the league in pressure percentage (25.7 percent) in the last four seasons, according to TruMedia. 'That guy, you watch him on tape, and he's a game-changer,' first-year Falcons defensive line coach Nate Ollie said. 'A very unique linebacker. Not many linebackers in the league can do what he can do. Man, he's slippery.' Elliss is 88th in sacks over the last four years (17). But he has so many responsibilities and gets only so many chances to rush the passer. His 370 pass-rush snaps since 2021 rank 285th in the league. Last season, he had 43 quarterback pressures on a career-high 147 pass-rush snaps, and that 29.3 percent rate led the league. In fact, the only players with more than 100 pass-rush snaps to finish within 10 percentage points of Elliss last season were Detroit's Aidan Hutchinson (25 percent), Tampa Bay's Lavonte David (21.5) and Arizona's Kyzir White (20.8). 'I can't imagine throughout the league that there is a more polished pass rusher on the inside than he is,' inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud said. Elliss also led the Falcons with 150 tackles, which ranked sixth in the NFL. 'He's unique,' coach Raheem Morris said. 'He can win from a bunch of different spots.' Elliss joined the Falcons as a free agent in 2023 after four years in New Orleans in which he started a combined 12 games, only breaking out in 2023. That slow start to his career might be the reason why at 30, when many professional athletes are just trying to hold on to what they have, Elliss continues to add elements to his game. 'He's still on the rise,' said Ruud, who had a nine-year NFL career in Tampa Bay, Houston, Tennessee and New Orleans. 'I was falling off the cliff going the other way when I was 30. Usually guys when they are his age, they have kind of found their niche. If anything, they are trying to hang on. He's a guy who is going the opposite way.' One of three players all-time in a single season with at least: 5 sacks1 strip sack150 tackles1 interception Kaden Elliss 🔥 — Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) June 27, 2025 Elliss' unusual development path could also be because of his football IQ, said Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, who is getting his first exposure to Elliss after being hired in the offseason. 'He has this amazing ability to apply information in real time,' Ulbrich said. 'At times, you are very careful about the level of detail that you give someone because it slows some guys down. It slows more players down than it doesn't. He is the exact opposite. The more information you give him, the better he does.' Advertisement Elliss is such a high-capacity player that he has convinced Ulbrich to violate one of the coach's key tenets, which is to 'put players on repeat' by giving them a limited number of roles and responsibilities to master. 'Most of the time I would say don't dilute guys, but he's a guy that we're going to push to be versatile,' Ulbrich said. Elliss' versatility means his role can be game plan-specific. In 2024, under former defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake, Elliss rushed the passer 46 times (with a 32.6 percent pressure rate) in the first eight games. In the last nine games, he rushed 101 times with five sacks and a 27.7 percent pressure rate. 'It's a lot of fun getting to do a lot of different things,' Elliss said. 'It gives you so many opportunities to impact the game. You can run around, go get as many tackles as you want, take away some pass concepts and then you get an arrow on your sheet and go get the quarterback.' Elliss' role this season is likely to depend as much on what his teammates can do as anything specific to him. The Falcons signed Divine Deablo to play on the inside next to Elliss and drafted two edge rushers — Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. — in the first round. 'Kaden makes my job easy,' Deablo said. 'He's a vet by the definition of it.' Even so, Elliss is still 'a developmental player behind the ball compared to his pass-rush ability,' Ruud said. Ulbrich has seen plenty of development there this offseason. 'I'm excited for the world to see what he has become as a stack linebacker,' Ulbrich said, 'plus all the other stuff he's going to do.'
CNN
3 minutes ago
- CNN
Exclusive: Trump to host professional athletes for new order expanding on presidential sports council
President Donald Trump will be joined by professional athletes on Thursday to sign an executive order that will expand on his council on sports, fitness and nutrition, including by reviving the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools, White House officials told CNN. The event, which will feature golfer Bryson DeChambeau, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker and former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, among others, comes as the US prepares to host the 2025 Ryder Cup, 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics — all of which are major feathers in Trump's cap for his second term. The president, who often boasts that he gets to oversee the milestone sporting events, has been heavily invested in making them a success. He has also used his bully pulpit to reshape cultural issues, many of which have been tied directly to sports, including new policies on transgender athletes and threatening the Washington Commanders to change its name back to the 'Redskins' or potentially face restrictions on a major stadium deal. This initiative appears as an attempt to build on that momentum. The order will formally reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test, first introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, creating school-based programs that reward 'excellence in physical education' and developing criteria for a Presidential Fitness Award, according to details of the order obtained by CNN. The test, which will be administered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., brings back the fitness challenge that permeated public schools from 1966 to 2012 and anointed children who received the highest scores with presidential recognition. Former President Barack Obama abandoned the test in 2012 and replaced it with an assessment called the FitnessGram focused on bettering individual health. 'Tomorrow afternoon President Trump will sign an Executive Order revitalizing the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition and revitalize the Presidential Fitness Test,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement. The order, which the White House says addresses 'the widespread epidemic of declining health and physical fitness,' instructs the presidential council to partner with professional athletes, sports organizations and influential figures. Many of those high-profile individuals will join Trump tomorrow in the White House's Roosevelt Room and become formal members of the council. All of them have close ties to the president. DeChambeau, a Trump favorite who currently plays on the LIV Golf League and recently visited the White House where he played golf on the South Lawn, is being named chairman of the council. Butker met with the president in the Oval Office earlier this year. The kicker set off waves of criticism last year after he said in a controversial commencement speech that a woman's accomplishments in the home are more valuable than any academic or professional goals and called Pride Month a 'deadly sin,' among other things. Butker later defended his address and emphasized his Catholic faith. Taylor, a New York City sports star during Trump's golden years in the 1980s and 1990s, has spoken at the president's campaign rallies. Other attendees expected at the Thursday event include Cody Campbell, a former college football player and the head of Texas Tech's Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) collective who has been a key voice contributing to Trump's policies on college sports; Paul 'Triple H' Levesque, the WWE's Chief Content Officer and 14-time World Champion who is the public face of a company that has a decades-long relationship with Trump; Annika Sorenstam, a Swedish professional golfer considered one of the most successful female golfers in history; and Stephen Soloway, a New Jersey physician who served on Trump's sports council during his first term.
New York Times
3 minutes ago
- New York Times
Pro Football Hall of Fame Game and ceremony: What to know and how to watch
Thursday will mark 173 days since the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 59. It's been a long wait but an NFL game is finally set to be played when the Detroit Lions take on the Los Angeles Chargers in the annual Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. The intensity of an extra preseason game is a far cry from the Super Bowl but it sets the table for a special weekend in which a new Pro Football Hall of Fame class gets enshrined. It's also a reminder that the regular season is just around the corner. Advertisement This year's game at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium is the first to be played in July since the New England Patriots took on the San Francisco 49ers on July 31, 2000. That game 25 years ago was the NFL debut of Tom Brady, who was drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round a few months prior. The Hall of Fame Game typically doesn't involve many key pieces from either side but the Chargers have announced that Trey Lance will start at quarterback. The No. 3 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft signed with the Chargers in April after beginning his career in San Francisco and spending the past two seasons in Dallas. The 2024 Hall of Fame Game between the Chicago Bears and the Houston Texans was called late in the third quarter due to inclement weather. The same thing happened in 1980 and 2003. Since 1962, the game has been canceled only three times: in 2011 (lockout), 2016 (bad field conditions) and 2020 (pandemic). Thursday's game serves more as the welcome mat for what the weekend is really about, which is the enshrinement of the newest members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This year's class features Eric Allen, Jared Allen, Antonio Gates and Sterling Sharpe. It's the smallest class since the Class of 2005, which was also a four-man group. The new members receive their gold jacket at dinner Friday, the evening before the big ceremony. Saturday afternoon will feature the main event, when the four former players will take the stage, unveil their Hall of Fame busts and give speeches. Game: NBC and Peacock. Broadcasters: Mike Tirico (play-by-play) and Cris Collinsworth (color). HOF ceremony: Fox and NFL Network.
