Kyle Van Noy

Career arc: ten years of role-player production, then a 12.5-sack year at age 33 that came out of nowhere.

For seven seasons (2017-2023) he was a 5-to-9 sack per year role player on four different teams. Year ten (2024, his age-33 season) was the explosion: 12.5 sacks and 21 QB hits — both career highs by significant margins. The 2025 collapse (2.0 sacks through 14 games) is the more typical late-career signature; the 2024 spike is what doesn't have a clean comp.

His 12.5 sacks at age 33 in 2024 is one of just a handful of 12-sack seasons by a 33+ player in the database.

Six 12-sack seasons by age-33+ players in 26 years of data — and Van Noy is one of them. The list is genuinely elite: Michael Strahan, J.J. Watt's final season (12.5 sacks before retirement), Kevin Greene's farewell tour as a Hall of Famer.

The broader frame: 58.0 of his 58.0 career regular-season sacks were accumulated, and 33.5 of them came after his 30th birthday — more in his 30s than his 20s, which inverts the usual EDGE aging curve.

58% of his career sacks came after he turned 30 — almost the exact inverse of the league-wide EDGE aging pattern.

League-wide, EDGE rushers tend to peak between ages 26-28 and decline 15-25% by their early 30s. Van Noy's data is the opposite: 0.29 sacks/game pre-30, 0.45 sacks/game from 30 onward, a 55% jump.

Most of the second-act story is the late-career fit at Baltimore (16.5 sacks in 2023+2024 combined under DC Mike Macdonald). His three pre-Baltimore teams used him primarily as an off-ball linebacker; Mike Macdonald turned him into a designated pass rusher in obvious passing downs.

Three multi-sack regular-season games of 2.0+ sacks against the AFC East rival Bills — more than against any other opponent.

His career-best regular-season game is 2020 Week 13 vs Cincinnati (3.0 sacks, 3 QB hits) during his Miami stint. The 2024 season produced 3 multi-sack games (BUF, LV, DAL) — the foundation of the 12.5-sack year.

The most striking pattern: three of his ten career 2+ sack games came against Buffalo (2018, 2019, 2024), spanning two different tenures with two different teams. The Bills' protection scheme apparently has a Van Noy-shaped hole.

He has more career sacks (58.0) than Manti Te'o, Anthony Barr, or Bobby Wagner — undrafted-rate respect for a Round 2 pick.

58.0 career sacks is more than 90% of LBs drafted in his round in the 2010s ever managed. He won Super Bowl LI and LIII with New England (used at OLB), and reached two AFC championships (2023, 2024) with Baltimore.

The career résumé reads like an undersized box-LB, but the production line — 58 sacks, 103 QB hits, 75 TFLs — is what NFL teams pay first-round draft capital to acquire.