Most Overlooked Bears Player?
Normally the website Next Gen Stats draws attention when talking about how many miles per hour a player runs or how far a quarterback throws a completion in the air.
It's sort of known as a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" site for football. You might look there to see a running back racing a horse or see how many inches running backs gain after contact when running at angles 48 degrees to the equator.
However, they do have some relevant statistics and also delve in unusual, valid metrics.
One they do have casts Bears safety Jaquan Brisker in a very good light.
The 2022 second-round pick from Penn State surfaces in an NFL.com article about overlooked players for every team and supports it with an uncommon-but-valid statistic.
Apparently money paid players is part of being underappreciated or it wouldn't have been listed with the player's ranking among those league-wide at his position. Basing anything on Brisker's average annual pay of $1.839 million is a stretch because he's only in the second year of a rookie contract but this isn't the statistic of real note.
Cynthia Frelund of NFL.com says teams had an expected completion percentage of 60.6 when they threw into Brisker's coverage but only came away with a 43.8% rate of completions. The minus-16.9 completion percentage they report (yes, actually 43.8 subtracted from 60.6 is really 16.8) is the best in the NFL for any safety.
As a result, Frelund concludes Brisker "...deserves much more love than he's received."
Brisker isn't entirely underappreciated. He did make the Pro Football Focus All-Rookie team. It's not easy to make as there is only a first team league-wide, no second team or selection by conference. He and Jalen Pitre were the safeties on the team.
Ironically, the website which says he is underrated did not put him on an all-rookie team they published. NFL.com writer Kevin Patra put out an all-rookie team after the season and had Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton from Notre Dame on it with Pitre at safety rather than Brisker.
Regardless of his second-round average salary or all-rookie status, there is no doubt Brisker was valuable to the Bears last year. It was never more apparent than when their highest-paid player, safety Eddie Jackson, suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Week 11—an injury the Bears said wouldn't require surgery but one that has him still missing OTA practices six months later.
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