Former Vikings’ Pass Rusher Makes a Bold Claim

Former Vikings draft pick Pat Jones II signed a two-year/$20 million deal with the Carolina Panthers during the free agency period earlier this year, and he hinted at the possibility of the grass being a tad greener in the Mid-Atlantic when it comes to the pass-rushing group developing in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I definitely think we could do something similar, if not better. I’ve seen it before, so I know what it looks like. I look around the building and see we have exactly what it takes to do that.

I know the guy has to hype his team up, and it’s quite the vote of confidence when you say you think your pass-rush consisting of Jones, fellow-former Viking D.J. Wonnum, and rookies Princely Umanmielen and Nic Scourton has the secret stuff to outperform the season-long totals of Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Dallas Turner, and your choice of their fourth edge-rusher.

Jones said the “if not better” when talking about the general pass-rushing success of the Panthers compared to what the Vikings did in 2024, and the comparison of edge-rushers is taking it easy on the Carolina Kitties when you also take into account the rest of the Vikings’ defensive front.

All due respect to the gentlemen in the Panthers’ edge-rushing room, they have a young and hungry group there, but let’s take a look at the Vikings’ and Panthers’ 2024 seasons to get an understanding of just how much better the Panthers’ pass-rush would have to get to have a 2025 season that is considered “better” than what the Vikes accomplished in 2024, the final year that Jones played in the purple, per NFL Pro:

Carolina Panthers pass-rushing metrics, 2024:

• 32 sacks (30th)
• 152 QB pressures (32nd)
• 25.5% team sack rate (32nd)
• 2.81 seconds time-to-pressure (28th)

…and the Vikings:

• 49 sacks (5th)
• 254 QB pressures (3rd)
• 6.9% team sack rate (T-12th)
• 2.53 seconds time-to-pressure (2nd)

So, yeah, admire the confidence, but that’s probably gonna take some work, there.

Jones gained his Panthers contract off of a big 2024 season in Minnesota; he had seven sacks in 16 games with only one start, therefore making him appear as an efficient rusher. He is a talented player with a lot of upside, but outside of stats that tell a small part of the story, Jones was very often an irrelevant defender on the field for the Vikings, at least per PFF.

Consider his 55.8 overall grade in 2024, which ranked 144th among 211 edge-rushers that season. He also brought home a 50.7 pass-rush grade, good for 194th out of the same qualifiers. Let’s go deeper:

Pat Jones II’s defensive grades in each year of his career:

• 2021: 43.0
• 2022: 65.6
• 2023: 37.5
• 2024: 55.8

And his career pass-rushing grades:

• 2021: 54.3
• 2022: 59.5
• 2023: 45.6
• 2024: 50.7

This isn’t meant to tear Jones down, as he is a down-to-Earth guy and had some key contributions to the Vikings, but if we are dissecting his claim that the Panthers’ pass-rush may rival or be better than the Vikings (yes, I still understand he’s just hyping up his guys), and if we consider that Wonnum is a very similar player to Jones, and that the other guys getting a fair amount of snaps are rookies, it’s probably fair to say their pass-rush won’t be better than Minnesota’s in 2025.

However, anything can happen.