Kyler Fackrell, the Jeff Janis of our OLB Corps and the namesake of my Fantasy Football team last season (I Fackrell Good,) is the first of two, maybe three, players I wanted to take a closer look at.

A third round pick out of Utah, Fackrell really got every packer fans’ attention last year when he tripped and stumbled his way into a 10.5 sack season. Fackrell started off his campaign quietly amassing only a tackle per game for his first two starts and then sacking Josh Allen three times in week 3:

K. Fackrell Sack 1

Fackrell literally stumbling ass backwards into a sack

K. Fackrell Sack 2

Fackrell with a nice little fake inside then comes around the edge but it should be noted that the OT gets injured on this play

K. Fackrell Sack 3

Fackrell beats a backup OT Conor McDermott for an easy sack. 68 is so slow to react that by the time he gets deep enough Fackrell runs right past him

Fackrell’s performance here was really more of an indictment of the offensive line than it was a testament to his skill. Also, Josh Allen didn’t really do much to help the big guys. He was skittish in the pocket and sometimes bailed too quickly though it’s hard to blame him considering who he has protecting him.

We go two weeks without Fackrell seeing an opposing qb, which brings us to the Rams game:

K. Fackrell Sack 4

Similar to what he did in the second sack in the Bills game Fackrell gives just the slightest fake like he’s going inside which makes Whitworth step up and lets Fackrell run right around him. Whitworth is a good Tackle (and, I believe, the NFL’s oldest lineman) and this was one of 4 sacks he gave up all season. Goff could have done a better job of stepping up in the pocket but this was a great sack by Kyler.

What’s disappointing is that Fackrell disappears for the rest of the game and doesn’t appear for another week until we play the Dolphins week 10:

K. Fackrell Sack 5

This beautiful spin move comes against Zach Sterup a backup RT that was moved to LT after the dolphins lost two linemen the week prior. Now while this spin move is impressive, Fackrell may also win the award for worst spin move of the season:

Worst Spin Move Nominee

And this is something that’s fairly common with Fackrell, he tends to get sloppy and also, like for the rest of the dolphins game, he tends to disappear.

Or, maybe, he was saving it up for the FACK PACK SACK ATTACK that was his game in Seattle and first start of the season. Fackrell was all over the goddamn place in this game sacking Russ 3 times, batting balls, tackling for losses and bull rushing LT Duane Brown like a mad man. This game also marks the first time in season that Fack has a sack in back to back games (it’s so much fun to end things with “-ack”):

K. Fackrell Sack 6

K. Fackrell Sack 7

The coverage was excellent on both of these sacks and Russ does what Russ do by holding on to the ball a bit too long but Fackrell was really giving Duane Brown the business.

The third sack came off a missed assignment and was pretty much a freebie for The Fack but it’s still nice to see #3 wrapped up and brought to the turf when he’s made so many people miss in that same situation

K. Fackrell Sack 8

The Vikings are up next and Fackrell really doesn’t do much of anything that game. The Vikings make things easy for Cousins by starting him off with a ton of quick throws to help that god awful line he has in front of him. Fackrell is also dropped into coverage more in this game than I had seen all season but, even when he was rushing, Fackrell’s bull rush was consistently denied. This was just a poor performance.

Even though he also didn’t register a sack against the Cardinals the following week, the game film tells a different story. Fackrell was Consistently double teamed by a TE and a T or chipped by a RB. The few instances where he took on a TE one on one, it really didn’t go too well for that TE.

The next half sack comes at the expense of The Biscuit week 15 against the Bears. There’s really not much to this one:

K. Fackrell Sack 8.5

The line collapses and everyone meets at the QB.

The penultimate sack comes way of a savvy little move. The shortest path to a QB is through the interior and Fackrell stunts back inside past the guard that’s occupied by #98.

K. Fackrell Sack 9.5

The final sack of the season, giving K-Fack double digit sacks (something I’m guessing zero people saw coming) was against the Lions in the final game of the season:

K. Fackrell Sack 10.5

This sack has more to do with the interior of the line collapsing and the coverage in the secondary than it does with #51.

Final Thoughts: I really don’t think Fackrell will have another double digit sack season and that’s not necessarily a bad thing for a third round pick that is really more of a depth piece. I think the stars aligned just right for him to rack up 10.5 sacks and more than half of his sacks came against two teams, one of which had a rookie qb with a bottom 10 line.

I can’t really point to anything Fackrell does very well, though there’s a lot that he does ok, and I think anyone expecting anything more than that might be disappointed. After the Bills game last year I wrote that I didn’t think Fackrell was very good and after watching a lot more film I think I was wrong. I don’t think I gave him the credit he deserved and as a situational/depth player I’m happy to have him on the team.