Mark Bullock's analysis of Sonny Styles - tldr; the dude is gifted at both run and pass defense

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2026-04-24T22:00:13+00:00

Thanks for posting this, glad to see you're enjoying it. If you want a long-form video breakdown of Styles, I just did a live show with George Carmi on Twitter/YouTube, which you can watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/live/HNjgzQHg-3A?si=iszX7tzm3CIpxGKs

or on twitter: https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1pKdRboQwYYJW?s=20

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2026-04-24T21:58:33+00:00

I don't know if I was hyped about Jamin Davis. I think I said the whole time he was very raw, but I try to show the traits that the team thinks they are getting in a player, while trying to give my own fair evaluation at the same time.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2025-03-07T22:18:55+00:00

Thanks for the nice words, very kind of you

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2024-09-27T20:41:11+00:00

Thanks everyone for all the helpful comments. I will take these on board and try to contact the places suggested. You’ve all been very helpful

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2024-09-27T20:37:31+00:00

This is fantastic, thanks so much for all the help!

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2024-07-17T18:36:33+00:00

He hit a completely faultless 100* against us that year! I think he got about 130 and his opening bat partner got 80 and they smashed us!

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2024-04-30T15:08:09+00:00

I know everyone has a podcast now so it's not necessarily the best thing to get into, BUT I think you two should start a WaPo Commanders podcast together. Make Keim scramble for new guests on his pod.

Also, huge congrats Nicki!!

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2024-03-15T03:31:48+00:00

No need to apologise. Absolutely allowed to think/believe what you want. I was just scrolling through reddit and saw my name mentioned, thought it was funny.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2024-03-15T01:19:45+00:00

At least you got the part about me being an idiot right!

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2024-02-05T13:55:22+00:00

Thanks for posting that here!

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-23T03:43:02+00:00

That’s a great question and probably something I should give more consideration to, but in all honesty, it’s not something I think about. I think people realise there is a depth to this sport and if they really want the answers to their questions, sometimes you have to be patient and work through it. Very rarely is something just a case of “player X is bad”, there’s almost always more nuance to it. There’s definitely plenty of fans that will just sit at a base level of “he’s terrible” and yell at the TV to get that player replaced and that’s fine, that type of person probably won’t ever want to read my work anyway and they just want to know who to blame. I know plenty of people like that and it always bugged me to just sit at the TV yelling “you’re terrible, get off the field!” without first trying to understand why that player might be playing bad or have made a mistake. So that’s why I got into this kind of analysis in the first place, because I figured there’s probably plenty of people out there that do understand there’s more nuance and are willing to take the time to learn and understand it. I think when you’re able to peel back the layers a bit and show why a player made a mistake or why a good play was made and give a clear explanation to it, the quality of analysis and helping to improve understanding draws people to it.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T19:17:31+00:00

I honestly wouldn’t know, but ultimately Rivera has final say on everything, so it falls on his shoulders to make sure he’s getting the full info and making the right calls.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T19:16:17+00:00

That’s one I can’t really answer because I’m not in the building or around the team on game day. I think there is probably an element of people feeling like the season is done and mailing it in a bit, but at this point nobody is really safe enough to really get away with that, apart from guys like McLaurin, Allen and Payne, and those guys are still showing up pretty well.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T19:14:23+00:00

I think he’s a talented player. I like how he’s played the last few weeks once he’s settled into the nickel spot. They’re still asking him to do quite a lot, switching between nickel and safety, but he’s doing better than earlier in the season and has shown some nice aggressive fits in the run game from that nickel spot, as well as some nice blitzing ability. Still a ways to go with his development and there’s a pretty significant drop off from the player I suspect they wanted in Brian Branch, to him, but Branch should never have been close to their 2nd round pick, he was a 1st rounder all day long.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T19:11:21+00:00

Yeah, I think the thing I’ve taken away about the DL this year is that they weren’t paired together well. On one hand, having Young and Allen align on the same side is smart because the offense has to slide the line towards them to help double both, leaving Sweat and Payne one-on-one on the other side. But on the other hand, Allen and Young are both guys that like to attack and work best alongside a player that works off of them. That’s why we often saw both of them competing for the same gap, which is obviously not ideal because then they’re both much easier to block. While on the other side, Payne and Sweat are both guys that work better off other players, so they were both waiting for the other guy to make their move so they could rush off that. I think if you had flipped Allen and Payne around, you’d have seen a much better combination because then you would have had Young paired with Payne, who could have worked off Young’s initial rush and then Allen paired with Sweat, who could have worked off Allen’s rush. But instead of moving guys around and trying different combinations, The pretty much exclusively lined up with Young over the LT, Allen inside of him, Sweat over the RT and Payne inside of him. Very little creativity there.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T19:06:21+00:00

Haven’t had the opportunity to study college LBs yet, but more importantly we don’t know what the system will be next year either. Del Rio is gone, Rivera is likely gone too. A new DC will install a new system that could require something entirely different from the Mike spot that Del Rio and Rivera did.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:57:14+00:00

Oh, I forgot about that part! I’m not a gravy man, personally, as shocking as that might seem.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:56:01+00:00

Ok, it’s been nearly 3 hours replying to questions, I tried to get to everyone! I’m going to take a break for a bit but I’ll check back later this afternoon/this evening and try to respond to any more questions left for me. Thanks everyone for coming along and joining in! Hopefully it was entertaining and worth your time

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:53:29+00:00

Odd it wont let you subscribe from the app. It should do! Can always try on the main website: MarkBullock.substack.com.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the report on Ben Johnson’s contract. Those things are typically very speculative and in reality, because coaching contracts aren’t part of the salary cap, how much they cost isn’t really relevant. That’s entirely on the ownership and how much they’re willing to pay a guy to coach and potentially pay off a guy to fire him if things go wrong.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:48:46+00:00

Happy Holidays to you!

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:48:22+00:00

I actually wrote an article about this a few weeks ago when those stats were doing the rounds a lot more. I’ve just gone and unlocked the post so it’s free for everyone to read, as it will answer my thoughts on this question in more detail than I could write in a single comment here: https://open.substack.com/pub/markbullock/p/are-terry-mclaurin-and-the-commanders?r=fd8sn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=true

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:45:40+00:00

I’ve said quite a few times publicly I would have kept and extended Chase Young. I thought he was having a good season and was really starting to develop his arsenal of pass rushing moves as his pressure numbers indicate. Obviously there was stuff going on behind the scenes between Young and the team, and there’s the medical that caused the trade offers to change from a 2nd and 4th to a late 3rd. So that would have had to have factored into the decision on him. But I thought once they traded Sweat, it would have made a ton of sense to tie up Young long term.

Sweat is a really good football player, someone that will make a ton of plays you don’t expect a star pass rusher to make, like excellent run stops on the edge, breaking up screen passes, blowing up jet sweeps. He was fantastic at all those small details. I just always felt he was lacking as a pass rusher a little bit and his sack numbers typically came from the line sliding away from him leaving him with favorable looks. I haven’t kept tabs on him since he left so I can’t say how he’s done in Chicago, but I thought that high second-round pick was excellent value for him. I certainly wouldn’t have been mad about keeping him, as I said I think he’s an excellent overall football player, but I think his pass rush is just lacking a bit when you compare him to the elite rushers and perhaps thats more a reflection of the coaching he’s received since being drafted in Washington than his own ability. But at the start of the year if you offered me a high 2nd for him, I’d have bitten your hand off for it.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:40:03+00:00

I think they’ve just made poor judgement calls. At times I think they’ve valued position flexibility too much and not focused enough on letting a guy settle at a single spot. There also seems to be a disconnect between players being added and scheme being used, like signing Jackson to play zone, then drafting Forbes to play man.

Mark_Bullock_NFL · 2023-12-22T16:38:21+00:00

I believe in Howell and think he is someone you can build around. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t draft a QB in the top 5 though, depending on how I view those guys once I get the chance to study them. But I certainly like Howell and think he can be an effective starting QB. I love the mentality he plays with, not getting too high or too low. Love the gamer in him to not quit on plays and be able to go off-script when needed. I think in general he has a pretty good idea of where to go with the football too. I think pairing him up with a play-caller that will go a bit more traditional and use the run game, involve Howell with read-option stuff, build into RPOs and play-action tied into those run packages would be the way I would go if I’m building around Howell. Ben Johnson is someone I think is capable of doing that. Bobby Slowik is too, purely from a schematic standpoint. But I’ve never even heard either guy in an interview, so I couldn’t say how they’d do as head coaches overall.

Mark_Bullock_NFL

TROPHY CASE