Cleveland Browns: Emmanuel Ogbah is a Top-5 defensive lineman in this statistic

Emmanuel Ogbah has not entirely panned out how the Cleveland Browns had hoped he would. While the sack numbers have not been there for him in his career, Ogbah has been elite in another category.

The Cleveland Browns selected Emmanuel Ogbah with the 32nd pick in the 2016 NFL draft. The New England Patriots lost their first round pick in this draft due to the Deflategate scandal, so Ogbah was actually the first pick in the second round, despite being the 32nd pick.

When the Browns made this selection they hoped that Ogbah would be the sack artist he was in college. The Emmanuel Ogbah who played for Oklahoma State had 26.5 sacks in his three-year college career, with 12.5 of those sacks his junior year. The Emmanuel Ogbah who plays for the Cleveland Browns only has 12.5 sacks over his three-year NFL career so far.

It’s pretty clear that Ogbah has not been the sack artist the Browns had hoped they were getting. To be fair, over his three-year career he has missed eight games and still has one left to play.

It is possible he might have had some more sacks if he had played in all of those. Even though the Browns haven’t gotten the sack artist version of Ogbah, they have gotten an elite swat artist at defensive end.

Ogbah has been great at swatting the ball down at the line of scrimmage. Throughout his three year NFL career, he is credited with 16 passes defended. That is tied for third among defensive linemen. He is tied with Kansas City’s breakout superstar defensive tackle Chris Jones. Only Carlos Dunlap (who has 30 passes defended) and Cameron Jordan (who has 23 passes defended) have more than Ogbah.

It should be very satisfying for Browns fans to see his name in the same category as these elite defensive linemen. While getting swats isn’t as helpful as getting sacks, it’s still a great play where the defense forces the offense to basically throw away a play. Swatting down a quarterback’s pass is also very detrimental to their confidence, and will make them think twice before throwing over a defensive lineman’s head.

Ogbah hasn’t had a pass defended this season since week nine, which is pretty odd for his case. Lamar Jackson hasn’t really been known for the deep ball so far in his career, as he has not gone over 210 yards in an NFL game. Expect the Ravens to throw a lot of short to intermediate passes this week. This will be prime time for Ogbah to rack up another swat or two to help build his confidence.