I don't want to alarm anyone, but I think it's happening.
After one of the more underwhelming rookie seasons in the last decade, people were pretty down on Tyree Wilson. He was always considered a longterm, developmental project when the Raiders drafted him 7th overall in 2023. He proceeded to put together a 3.5 sack rookie season – without a start – that year, and had to fight for reps during this past training camp.
Wilson's been the topic of basically every Raiders trade rumor that doesn't involve Davante Adams ever since – LV's defensive line is deep, Wilson wasn't drafted by Antonio Pierce/Tom Telesco, he could use a change of scenery, etc. It always felt like a second-straight bad year would mark the end of Wilson's time in Vegas, fair or not.
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And while it's only been a month, the early returns on Wilson's season are ... surprisingly optimistic? Almost, dare I say, good? Wilson was arguably the Raiders' best player during their Week 4 win over the Browns, and some of his underlying data shows a player who's been pleasantly productive through the first quarter of the season.
Tyree Wilson is starting to show signs of being an NFL-caliber pass rusher
#Raiders pass rush vs CLE:
— Tristen Kuhn (@KuhnTristen) September 30, 2024
Adam Butler: 7 pressures, 2 QB Hits, 10.8% Win Rate
Tyree Wilson: 5 pressures, 2 QB Hits, 21.4% Win Rate
Charles Snowden: 5 pressures, sack, 3 QB Hits, 8.3% Win Rate
Christian Wilkins: 4 pressures, .5 sack, 3 QB Hits, 10.3% Win Rate
K'Lavon Chaisson:…
Tyree Wilson's 15.6% pass rush win rate is currently 24th in the NFL at EDGE. He's 4th among 2023 drafted EDGE rushers ahead of Will Anderson, Byron Young, Tuli Tuipulotu, and Nolan Smith among others.
— Tristen Kuhn (@KuhnTristen) September 30, 2024
Wilson's still looking for his first sack of the year, so it's not like the breakout season is officially official. But still – sacks are an imperfect stat, and there's obviously plenty of reasons to be excited about some of the underlying data. If someone told you a month ago that Wilson was going to be more productive over the first few weeks than *Will Anderson,* they'd get laughed out of the room. If sacks are the reward for a lot of hard work that goes on behind the scenes, it's not unreasonable to expect those to start showing up sometime soon.
For the PFF fanatics out there, good news: his grades are good. Like, really good – his overall defensive grade (75.0) is the 25th best grade of any EDGE in the NFL. His actual pass-rush grade (69.5) isn't quite as good (35th overall), but his stellar run defense (10th overall)(!) makes up for it. He also, it should be noted, just turned 24 a few weeks ago. It's almost like young pass rushers sometimes need more than one (1) season to develop!
It's probably still a bit too early to make any grand declarations, but it sure looks like the Tyree Wilson breakout season is under way.