Latest news with #Herbig
USA Today
5 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Two former Wisconsin Badgers land on PFF's list of the NFL's most underrated players
Two former Wisconsin Badgers land on PFF's list of the NFL's most underrated players A pair of Wisconsin Badger linebackers appeared on ProFootballFocus' recent list of the NFL's most underrated players entering 2025. Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Nick Herbig, a three-year Badger from 2020-22, and Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal, who donned the scarlet and red with Herbig from 2020-21, earned a spot on the outlet's preseason list. Chenal, who boasts a pair of Super Bowl titles with the Chiefs, has posted 160 total tackles, 15 tackles for loss, 11 quarterback hits, five sacks and three forced fumbles in three NFL seasons. In 17 appearances during the 2024 campaign, the Wisconsin native turned in 60 tackles (40 solo), three pass deflections and three forced fumbles. On a team with stars including Chris Jones, Trent McDuffie and Nick Bolton, Chenal can be overlooked. Here's PFF's analysis of the former Badger's significance within the championship-caliber defensive unit. "Chenal has a very specific role in Steve Spagnuolo's defense, operating as an early-down/run-defending specialist and playing just 26% of the team's possible third- and fourth-down snaps since 2023. Chenal has thrived in that early-down role, earning the third-best PFF run-defense grade (91.3) at his position since 2023, behind only Bobby Wagner (94.1) and Fred Warner (92.1). He has done this by engineering back-to-back seasons with top-four marks as a run defender, and as he enters a contract year, he should continue to be a key member of the Chiefs' run-defense unit." Herbig, a first-team All-Big Ten team member in 2022, captured the most underrated designation for the Steelers. The Hawaii product proved his worth during a dominant preseason last year, leading to a career-best five starts during the regular season. In 13 total appearances, Herbig logged 22 total tackles (13 solo), 11 quarterback hits, 5 1/2 sacks, five tackles for loss and four forced fumbles. His most dominant performance arrived in Week 3 against the Los Angeles Chargers, a game in which the defender accounted for three tackles, two sacks and one forced fumble. Like Chenal, Herbig won't draw the most attention in his defensive unit. His worth, however, is invaluable. Here's PFF's assessment. "Herbig isn't going to get the same recognition as T.J. Watt or Alex Highsmith along the Steelers' defensive line, and part of that has to do with his much lower snap share, but it's worth noting how well he has performed when he is given an opportunity. Since 2022, Herbig owns a 91.4 PFF pass-rush grade, which ranks seventh among all edge defenders with at least 250 pass-rush snaps. With Watt and Highsmith occasionally missing time due to injury, having a high-end pass rusher like Herbig waiting in the wings is a very underrated and valuable option that not many teams have the luxury of." Chenal's Chiefs begin the season on Sept. 5 against the Chargers, while Herbig's Steelers square off against the New York Jets in Week 1 on Sept. 7. Contact/Follow @TheBadgersWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Wisconsin Badgers news, notes and opinion
USA Today
23-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Nick Herbig stats, game log, news, injury status
Nick Herbig stats, game log, news, injury status The Pittsburgh Steelers' Nick Herbig will see his first action of 2025 in his team's season opener against the New York Jets, starting at 1 p.m. ET on Sept. 7. On defense Herbig, who played in 12 games, compiled 22 tackles, 5.0 TFL, and 5.5 sacks. Get Steelers tickets on StubHub! Nick Herbig injury news Herbig is not currently on this week's injury list. Nick Herbig stats (2024) Tackles: 22 22 Tackles for loss: 5.0 5.0 Sacks: 5.5 Herbig game log (2024) Week 1 at Falcons: 1 Tackle (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 1 Tackle (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 2 at Broncos: 0 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 0 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 3 vs. Chargers: 3 Tackles (2.0 TFL), 2.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 3 Tackles (2.0 TFL), 2.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 4 at Colts: 2 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 2 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 5 vs. Cowboys: 2 Tackles (1.0 TFL), 0.5 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 2 Tackles (1.0 TFL), 0.5 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 11 vs. Ravens: 2 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 2 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 12 at Browns: 5 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 1.0 Sack, 0 INT, 0 PD 5 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 1.0 Sack, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 13 at Bengals: 2 Tackles (1.0 TFL), 1.0 Sack, 0 INT, 0 PD 2 Tackles (1.0 TFL), 1.0 Sack, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 15 at Eagles: 2 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 2 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 16 at Ravens: 1 Tackle (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 1 Tackle (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 17 vs. Chiefs: 0 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD 0 Tackles (0.0 TFL), 0.0 Sacks, 0 INT, 0 PD Week 18 vs. Bengals: 2 Tackles (1.0 TFL), 1.0 Sack, 0 INT, 0 PD Next game: Nick Herbig vs. the New York Jets Herbig's Pittsburgh Steelers (0-0) play the Jets (0-0) in their next game. How to watch Nick Herbig and the Steelers Matchup: Pittsburgh Steelers at New York Jets Pittsburgh Steelers at New York Jets Time: 1 p.m. ET 1 p.m. ET Date: September 7, 2025 September 7, 2025 TV: CBS CBS Live stream: Fubo (regional restrictions may apply) Fubo Live stream: Paramount+ Watch Steelers vs. Jets on Fubo!
USA Today
19-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
PFF names third-year defender most underrated Steeler ahead of 2025 season
PFF names third-year defender most underrated Steeler ahead of 2025 season T.J. Watt must be proud — as his protege and fellow Wisconsin Badger Nick Herbig was just named the most underrated Steeler by Pro Football Focus. PFF highlighted that while Herbig gets far less opportunity to rush the passer than Watt, he makes the most of what he's given — as evident in Week 8 last season against the Chargers, when Herbig recorded two sacks and a forced fumble on just eight pass-rush snaps. Here is how Pro Football Focus' Jonathon Macri defended Herbig's selection as the most underrated Steelers player ahead of the 2025 season: "Since 2022, Herbig owns a 91.4 PFF pass-rush grade, which ranks seventh among all edge defenders with at least 250 pass-rush snaps. With Watt and Highsmith occasionally missing time due to injury, having a high-end pass rusher like Herbig waiting in the wings is a very underrated and valuable option that not many teams have the luxury of." At best, Herbig will serve as the Steelers' saving grace if they fail to extend Watt beyond the 2025 season — and at worst, he's one of the league's best backup edge defenders.
Forbes
17-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Apollo Exposed: What 400M Fake Ad Requests Reveal About Fraud
Audio advertising is booming. With programmatic audio spend projected to surpass $2 billion in 2025, it's become one of the most promising—and vulnerable—channels in digital media. Where innovation leads, cybercrime follows. And the recent Apollo operation uncovered by HUMAN and The Trade Desk is a case study in just how sophisticated, and damaging, that fraud can be. At its peak, Apollo accounted for 400 million fraudulent bid requests per day, making it the largest audio-related ad fraud scheme ever detected. But what makes Apollo especially troubling isn't just the scale—it's how convincingly it mimicked legitimate traffic, exploited supply chain blind spots, and leveraged malware-infected CTV devices to obscure its origin. I spoke with Will Herbig, senior director for AdTech Fraud Research & Strategic Customer Analytics at HUMAN, about the research. He explained that Apollo preyed on a fundamental weakness in server-side ad insertion, the technology used to serve seamless audio and video ads without interrupting user experience. With SSAI, advertisers receive limited telemetry—often just a user-agent string and an IP address—making it an ideal environment for spoofing. Fraudsters behind Apollo reverse-engineered the ad request flows of legitimate apps, replicating their formats to impersonate real audio ad inventory. They even spoofed apps that shouldn't have been serving audio at all. 'One of the things that sparked this investigation was the question of, why are puzzle apps serving audio ads?' Herbig told me. 'At least in my experience, it's uncommon that a puzzle app or something like that is going to serve an audio ad.' It was a subtle anomaly—but it set off a cascade of deeper analysis that ultimately exposed Apollo's intricate fabrication tactics. Apollo's traffic wasn't generated by infected devices in the traditional sense. Instead, bid requests were fabricated wholesale—generated by script, spoofed to resemble real devices, and funneled through residential proxies to mask their true data center origins. Herbig emphasized that the scale Apollo operated at generated traffic equivalent to a the traffic of a mid-sized city like Stamford, Connecticut. That scale was achieved in part thanks to BADBOX 2.0, a botnet of over a million compromised connected TV devices. Apollo traffickers leveraged BADBOX to route requests through residential IPs, making the traffic appear legitimate and difficult to trace. HUMAN had previously disrupted BADBOX, but its infrastructure was clearly still being exploited. By layering spoofed app identities, forged device configurations, and residential proxy evasion, Apollo's operators built a fraud operation that slipped through many traditional defenses. The real damage, however, was in how Apollo exploited programmatic advertising's fragmented supply chain. Many platforms only validate the final seller in a transaction—a check that Apollo often passed. But those 'authorized' sellers were frequently several layers removed from the spoofed origin. 'There can be non-compliance in earlier parts of the supply chain, and then as you get to later parts, things look valid,' Herbig said. 'Many implementations of these supply chain standards are only checking the last place that came from, so everything that happened before that is kind of out of scope.' This phenomenon—what HUMAN refers to as 'supply chain convergence'—allows spoofed inventory to piggyback on authorized reseller pathways, creating a false sense of legitimacy. It's a loophole that remains dangerously under-policed in today's real-time bidding ecosystem. HUMAN didn't just uncover Apollo—they helped dismantle it. Leveraging a predictive pre-bid scoring engine and an aggressive response strategy, the company saw a 99% reduction in Apollo-associated traffic across its platform. 'We are effectively demonetizing this supply,' Herbig said. 'By reducing the amount of bids that this inventory is getting… we're making it harder and harder for fraudsters to profit.' The broader goal, Herbig explained, is to make ad fraud uneconomical at scale. Each operation disrupted increases the operational cost for cybercriminals. Every layer of complexity—whether it's a disrupted proxy network, stricter supply chain checks, or tighter SDK enforcement—raises the barrier to entry. One of the strongest weapons against operations like Apollo isn't just technology—it's collaboration. HUMAN has leaned heavily into this strategy through its Human Collective, a multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at threat sharing and collective protection. According to Herbig, 'One of the great things we're doing is threat sharing. When we are observing concentrations of IBT, we are discussing that with the Human Collective, and we're using it as a forum for collaboration and a forum for discussion.' By sharing intelligence, surfacing patterns, and coordinating responses, HUMAN and its partners are creating a ripple effect across the programmatic ecosystem. The goal isn't to eliminate fraud entirely—it's to tip the cost-benefit equation against the fraudsters. As Herbig put it, 'We're trying to disrupt the economics of cybercrime… to the point that it becomes not worth it.' Apollo is a milestone—not just in the scope of audio ad fraud, but in how the industry responds to it. The findings call for stronger adoption of third-party verification tools like the Open Measurement SDK, more rigorous end-to-end supply path validation, and above all, tighter industry-wide collaboration. Audio may be one of the newest frontiers in ad fraud, but it doesn't have to be the most vulnerable. With vigilance, transparency, and cooperation, the industry has a fighting chance to turn down the noise and restore trust in programmatic audio.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Commanders continue to add offensive line depth in free agency
Commanders GM Adam Peters added an offensive lineman, Friday. Many won't even recognize the name of the player the Commanders signed, but Nate Herbig is probably just fine with that reality. You see, Herbig played at Stanford and then wasn't even drafted. An undrafted free agent, he was signed by the Eagles in 2019 and proved himself, making the Eagles 53-man roster three consecutive seasons (2019-21). Following a single season with the Jets (2022), he has been with the Steelers the last two seasons (2023-24). So, Herbig is probably not a big name in any fan base in which he has played. In his five NFL seasons, Herbig has played in 61 games, starting 30 at guard. Playing in all 17 games in 2024 for the Steelers, Herbig managed to only start in two, and the Steelers offense was not exactly one of the league's elite offenses. But Adam Peters has signed all 6-foot-4, 334 pounds of Herbig. He is being signed to provide the Commanders more NFL experienced depth at guard. Right guard Sam Cosmi will most likely be out a substantial amount of time, having torn an ACL in the January playoff win at Detroit. In addition, left guard Nick Allegretti was at times less than impressive during the 2024 season. So Peters is wanting to bring some more guards to camp to compete. No, you don't know the name, but most Redskins fans didn't know the names of Ron Saul, Ray Brown, Raleigh McKenzie or Mark Schlereth either when they first came to Washington to play on the offensive line. Each spent quite a bit of time at guard, playing in anonymity, but each made their mark in time in the NFL. So, we remind ourselves that Peters is building his roster right 90-man roster that will report to training camp in July. This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: Washington Commanders signed guard Nate Herbig
