Nice Pat Y article on Hardy.

[koolkatluke]

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcsouth

Carolina’s Greg Hardy and Tampa Bay rookie Adrian Clayborn weren’t among the NFL’s sack leaders in 2011, but you can make the argument they’re among the best all-around defensive ends in the game.

Clayborn

Hardy Hardy and Clayborn showed some pass-rush skills, but they also played the run very well. That combination of skills was why they were on the field more than the rest of the NFC South defensive ends last season.

Hardy led division ends by participating in 891 of Carolina’s 1,023 defensive plays. That 87.1 percentage ranked Hardy No. 6 among defensive ends. Minnesota’s Jared Allen led the league at 94.3 percent.

[CRA]

disagree w/ Pat. Hardy does show promise as a pass rusher.

Weak against the run. Time on the field is mainly an issue of have weak other options and CJ getting gimpy late meant more reps for Hardy.

[sharkman]

disagree w/ Pat. Hardy does show promise as a pass rusher.

Weak against the run. Time on the field is mainly an issue of have weak other options and CJ getting gimpy late meant more reps for Hardy.

This. Hardy is a passing down player, and not much of a run stopper....imho.

[Herbert The Love Bug]

hahaha give me a break

[Proudiddy]

This is part of why I haven't really jumped on the Coples bandwagon. Although his size/athleticism would be hard to pass up and a trio of CJ, Hardy, and Coples rotating throughout the game would just be so dirty it would have to be ruled illegal... Hardy is a beast.

I think the average fan doesn't get just how good he is and how good he can be. His athleticism is right up there with just about any other DE in the game IMO.

This isn't just unfounded fanboy homerism... I looked up advanced stats last year to compare how CJ and Pep were stacking up against each other and in the process found out that Hardy had just as good (possibly even higher) pressure stats as CJ. He also had extremely high success rates in the run game. I'll see if I can find the stats again, but he was getting tons of pressure, he just didn't have the eye-catching sack stat to show for it.

He's gonna be a good one.

[Proudiddy]

This wasn't the site I originally found, as the one I remember was much more detailed and broke down the various situational stats... Anyway, here is one just to give you an idea:

http://wp.advancednflstats.com/defenderstats.php?year=2011&pos=DE&season=reg

Even according to this bootleg site, Hardy ranked as the 25th best DE in the league. He had a higher "success count" than CJ and had only 3 less hits on the QB. And as I expected before looking, he led the league in passes defensed by DEs...

[Jesse]

Give him an adequate pair of DTs and hes good. He was only a 6th rounder in his 2nd year; I'm happy to have him.

[Floppin]

Hardy jumped inside and failed to seal the edge, especially early in the season, so his errors in the run game were very visible. Outside of those isolated mental errors he was more than solid in run defense.

[KillerKat]

Jesus Christ, Pat Y couldn't be any further from the truth. Where's the link to that pff article of how much Hardy sucks ass against the run. This is nothing but pure ignorance and laziness. Do some research before typing out crap like this.

[koolkatluke]

If Hardy was such a handicap in the run defense. Why was he on the field more then any DE in this division. Rivera isn't stupid and knows defense. If he felt Hardy sucked against the run he wouldn't have been out their as much as he was. We did have ok back-up DE's.

[Leeroy Jenkins PhD]

It's attempting to manipulate the Panthers front office into thinking were set at DE so we don't draft one, when in reality, Hardy was craptastic versus the run.

WTF does time on the field have to do with ability? We were garbage in defending the run, particularly bad on his side. Stats don't lie and I'm too lazy to post them.

Someone please explain to me why this article makes any sense at all?

[koolkatluke]

It's attempting to manipulate the Panthers front office into thinking were set at DE so we don't draft one, when in reality, Hardy was craptastic versus the run.

WTF does time on the field have to do with ability? We were garbage in defending the run, particularly bad on his side. Stats don't lie and I'm too lazy to post them.

Someone please explain to me why this article makes any sense at all?

We were bad with runs up the Middle where we had 2 rookie DT for most of the year. Runs to the outside didn't hurt us as much until we started losing all our fast LB.

[KillerKat]

If Hardy was such a handicap in the run defense. Why was he on the field more then any DE in this division. Rivera isn't stupid and knows defense. If he felt Hardy sucked against the run he wouldn't have been out their as much as he was. We did have ok back-up DE's.

You didn't see the article showing statistical evidence that he was piss poor against the run. I can't find it because search is always down.

[KillerKat]

We were bad with runs up the Middle where we had 2 rookie DT for most of the year. Runs to the outside didn't hurt us as much until we started losing all our fast LB.

Incorrect