[Quesadilla Joe]

Broncos' Dumervil has become money as big-time pass rusher
Big bucks ahead for 2006 fourth-rounder who has turned into sack star

With all the money NFL teams waste on scouting, perhaps some of it could be transferred to players like Elvis Dumervil.

The No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft was defensive end Mario Williams. Houston gave him a six-year contract worth $54 million. To date, Williams has 32.5 sacks in 52 games.

Way back in the fourth round of the same draft, with the No. 126 overall pick, Dumervil was selected. The Broncos gave Dumervil a four-year deal worth $2 million. He has 34 sacks in 49 games.

Thus, Dumervil has nearly two more sacks in three fewer games for $52 million less than the pass rusher drafted 125 picks ahead of him.

Kudos to the Broncos' scouting department and executives for coming up with perhaps the greatest fourth round in NFL draft history. Besides Dumervil, Denver nabbed a wide receiver named Brandon Marshall earlier in the round.

Then again, weren't the Broncos also a bit lucky Marshall and Dumervil were still around in the fourth round?

"I think the biggest thing about Elvis is he plays the game with a little bit of a chip on his shoulder," Broncos defensive coordinator Mike Nolan said. "He is a little shorter and people bring it to his attention, including me, but he overcomes it. He's very competitive."

Pound per pound, inch per inch, the 5-foot-11, 248-pound Dumervil is arguably the NFL's best pass rusher. Stripping away subjective reasoning and getting more to the point of statistical production, Dumervil is the NFL's sixth-best active pass rusher — and climbing.

Dumervil in his career has .694 sacks per game, a clip that exceeds all but the highly compensated Shawne "roidman" Merriman, Jared Allen, DeMarcus Ware, John Abraham and Dwight Freeney.

And while Merriman hasn't reached the quarterback since the final game of the 2007 season, and Ware is sackless this year, Dumervil has eight sacks in his past three games.

"They should break that down to sacks per plays," Dumervil said, noting he played in less than 30 percent of the Broncos' defensive snaps in his rookie year of 2006 and was primarily a third-down rusher last season. "But I've got a long way to go. I'm still trying to learn."

With his Broncos taking a 4-0 record into their game Sunday against the New England Patriots, Dumervil does not have dollar signs racing through his mind, but quarterback Tom Brady.

"When you start thinking about contract stuff, that's when you get off course and lose focus," Dumervil said. "If you just come out and do your job, those type of things will come. I love the game. This is something I love to do."

The Broncos are likely to address Dumervil's contract the minute after it expires at season's end. What could Dumervil command in the open market? First, consider the boom of teams using the 3-4 defense and the premium it places on pass-rushing outside linebackers like Dumervil.

Baltimore recently re-signed Terrell Suggs to a $63 million deal. Freeney, with whom Dumervil is most often compared, is in the third year of a six-year deal that will pay him $72 million.

Among defensive linemen, it's the pass rushers who get the big money.

"On defense, all they ever talk about is stopping the run, stopping the run," said Broncos defensive lineman Vonnie Holliday. "That's the No. 1 goal. But the guys that get paid are the ones that get sacks."

Why is that? If the quarterback is the undisputed most important position to a football team, then it follows that the next significant positions are those who can directly stop the quarterback.

"I think it's because the quarterback is so important and it's also very exciting for the fans, for the team — it's third down, you've got to have a stop and you sack the quarterback," Holliday said. "You're talking about the excitement it causes, the momentum shifts, all those things are very important."

Not only are exciting, momentum-shifting pass rushers important, they're apparently difficult for scouts to find.

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