Broncos CB Kris Abrams-Draine, Lions’ defensive line stepped up for their teams in Week 16

Chuba Hubbard, De’Von Achane, and Kyle Van Noy may be a bit under the radar, but they’re playing well for their teams.

As any NFL season progresses, there will be more unheralded players who rise up from humble beginnings to become factors, and guys whose careers have gone sideways who somehow find the road back to relevance.

We like to celebrate these players every week in “Secret Superstars.” This week, we have two young running backs who defined wins for their teams, a guard playing tackle, an entire defensive line, and a rookie afterthought who has become a lockdown cornerback.

Chuba Hubbard, RB, Carolina Panthers

Don’t look now, but the Carolina Panthers’ offense is starting to become a thing. Quarterback Bryce Young’s development is the big story, and justifiably so – the Panthers have risen from 31st in Passing DVOA in Weeks 1-9 to 21st since — but we should not overlook the efforts of running back Chuba Hubbard, the 2021 fourth-round pick out of Oklahoma State. 2024 marks Hubbard’s first 1,000-yard season, though he came close in 2023 with 902 yards in an offense that couldn’t bust a grape. Now, and especially against the Arizona Cardinals in Sunday’s 36-30 overtime win, Hubbard is the epicenter of an offense that can credibly bust much tougher fruit on a regular basis.

Against Jonathan Gannon’s defense, Hubbard ran 25 times for 152 yards, two touchdowns (including the game-winner), 109 yards after contact, six forced missed tackles, and four yards of 10 or more yards. The Panthers did a really nice job of setting Hubbard up for success by aligning guard Chandler Zavala up as a sixth offensive lineman on multiple plays, and when the specter of two tight ends was added to the equation, the math really didn’t work for the Cardinals.

“That’s my dawg,” Young said postgame of his feature back. “The thing that people don’t see is how hard he works throughout the week. I can’t even tell you when he leaves this place. He’s constantly doing extra things, doing little things, constantly watching films, taking care of his body. He cares and gives so much to this game. On top of the player he is, the person he is, the dedication that he has, the things he shows me that no one gets to see, that the outside public doesn’t get to see, that continues to build on all of us and how much we trust him.”

More people are starting to see the unseen things at this rate. Since Week 10, Hubbard’s 530 rushing yards ranks seventh in the league.

De’Von Achane, RB, Miami Dolphins

Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel has long been known as one of the NFL’s most diverse and explosive offensive play-designers, and that’s still true even in a season that has been a fairly epic disappointment for the team. Sunday’s 29-17 win over the San Francisco 49ers put Miami at 7-8 on the season, but the additional bright spot in addition to the win over Kyle Shanahan – for whom McDaniel coached from 2017 through 2021 – was the play of running back De’Von Achane. Put simply, this was everything the Dolphins could have hoped for from the 2023 third-rounder out of Texas A&M when he joined the team with the pre-requisite track speed and gobsmacking versatility.

Miami’s quarterback conundrums with and without Tua Tagovailoa have been a major part of those aforementioned disappointments, but against San Francisco’s defense, Achane blew that all apart. He gained 120 rushing yards and scored a 50-yard touchdown on 17 carries, and added 70 receiving yards on six catches.

That’s the thing about Achane’s value to the Dolphins – he’s a fine runner, with 761 yards and five touchdowns on 182 carries – but it’s as a receiver with all types of routes that he provides the kind of juice one might expect from a healthy Christian McCaffrey. Perhaps Achane is developing into McDaniel’s own version of his mentor’s ultimately versatile feature back.

Joe Thuney, LT, Kansas City Chiefs

To put it mildly, the Chiefs’ offensive tackle situation this season has been a disaster. Left tackles Wanya Morris, Kingsley Suamataia, and D.J. Humphries have combined to allow nine sacks and 51 total pressures, and right tackle Jawaan Taylor (he of the four-year, $80 million contract with $60 million guaranteed) has been a turnstile with severe penalty issues ever since he put pen to paper in 2023. There’s only so much Patrick Mahomes can overcome, especially as he’s dealing with ankle issues brought about by that lack of protection.

Going up against a Houston Texans defense with edge-rushers Will Anderson Jr. and Danielle Hunter looked to be a horrible matchup for the defending champs, so Andy Reid and his staff made some changes. Morris was moved to right tackle, and star left guard Joe Thuney (one of the best in the business for years) kicked out to left tackle – a position at which Thuney has seen exactly 237 snaps in his nine-year career. 75 of those snaps came in Week 15 against the Cleveland Browns, and in that game, Thuney allowed 10 total pressures against Myles Garrett and his crew. So, it looked like the Thuney experiment was one more instance of the Chiefs throwing it against the wall at a highly vulnerable position.

Thuney looked a lot better against Houston’s furious pass rush. He gave up four pressures to Anderson and Hunter, and while he’ll probably never look like a textbook tackle on tape, he adapted enough to get the job done. Moreover, the move to right tackle seemed to make Morris a more comfortable player, as the third-year man played primarily on the right side at Oklahoma.

“I thought Wanya did a nice job coming in,” Reid said postgame. “I thought Joe [Thuney] did a nice job on the other side, too – stepped in there. Wanya’s, you know, gone back to the drawing board, worked on it and is getting better every day. I know I say that, but both of those two young guys [Morris and Suamataia] are going to be okay. They’ve been working like crazy to get themselves back to where they need to be.”

Ideally, the recently acquired Humphries will return with a clean bill of health from the hamstring injury that’s recently been a problem, and Thuney can go back to dominating as a left guard. And it’s not as if the Chiefs’ protection matchups get any easier; they close out the regular season against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Christmas Day, and against the Denver Broncos on January 5. But as it stands, Thuney gives his team one option that isn’t a complete debacle on the outside, and that represents an upgrade.

The Detroit Lions’ “no-name” defensive line

David Bada. Derrick Barnes. John Cominsky. Marcus Davenport. Aidan Hutchinson. Nate Lynn. Alim McNeill. Kyle Peko. That, in alphabetical order, is the list of Detroit Lions defensive linemen currently on injured reserve. Overall, Detroit had 21 players on IR right now, so it’s not exactly a secret just how banged-up the defensive front is.

Still, the Lions are sporting a 13-2 record following their 34-17 Sunday win over the Chicago Bears. And while the Bears’ offense is unwatchable more often than not (really, I thought Caleb Williams might have half a chance to escape this team’s 75-year Quarterback Curse), but when you’re missing this many guys, anything you do well against any offense is a worthy endeavor.

In this case, it was the Replacements – the recently-acquired ZaDarius Smith, and rotational guys Josh Paschal, Levi Onwuzurike, and Patrick O’Connor – who stepped up and made the Lions’ pass rush look as if it hasn’t missed a beat. Williams was pressured on 17 of his 46 dropbacks, and when pressured, he completed four of 11 passes for 46 yards and a passer rating of 49.8. Smith had six pressures, and Paschal, Onwuzurike, and O’Connor each had four.

That’s what you call coaching, kids. And for those not familiar with the “Kick Out the Jams” reference… you’re welcome.

Kyle Van Noy, EDGE, Baltimore Ravens

The 2024 Ravens look like a potential Super Bowl champion on offense in that you have to pick which guy between Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry when discussing 2024 NFL MVP candidates. The defense under first-year coordinator Zach Orr has been a different story, though. This unit was the NFL’s best in 2023 under now-Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald, but the transition was rough at first. That same defense that clowned every opponent last season finished the first half of the 2024 campaign ranked 14th in Defensive DVOA, and 22nd against the pass. That’s turned around since Week 10 for a couple of reasons. First, the move to make Kyle Hamilton more of a pure free safety as opposed to a do-it-all guy, and veteran Kyle Van Noy’s ascent as a pass-rusher.

Van Noy, now in his 11th NFL season, has done a bit of everything for five different teams – everything from off-ball linebacker to slot defender to edge-rusher to stand-up three-technique disruptor in nickel and dime packages. In his second season with the Ravens, Van Noy now has 11 sacks (his first 10-plus sack season), and he’s still getting it done from just about everywhere. In Baltimore’s pivotal 34-17 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers last Saturday, Van Noy had a sack and four total pressures.

Not bad for an old guy, and as former New England Patriots teammate Tom Brady pointed out, really not bad for a guy who’s basically playing with a broken face.

“[I’m] just grateful for the guys that have been in the locker room and [pass rush coach] Chuck Smith, [assistant defensive line coach/outside linebackers] Matt [Robinson] and Coach [John] Harbaugh [for] just allowing me to be me here, and it’s been fun,” Van Noy said after the win over the Steelers. “I’ve put in a lot of hard work. A lot of people wrote me off last year, and I believe I’m playing at a Pro Bowl level. So, all of the voters out there, vote for your boy.”

It’s not a bad idea, really.

Kris Abrams-Draine, CB, Denver Broncos

The 2024 Broncos are 9-6 and competing for a wild card playoff spot, which would represent the franchise’s first postseason appearance since its Super Bowl 50 win at the end of the 2015 season. It’s a considerable uptick over 2023’s 8-9 debacle in Sean Payton’s first season as head coach, which was led by the bad fit that Russell Wilson was, and a defense that was among the worst in NFL history early in the season.

Things are generally more in tune at the quarterback position with rookie Bo Nix, and the defense has been an absolute revelation. The Broncos have been one of the most blitzy defenses, and this has allowed them to get a ton of effective pressure. And the addition of second-year cornerback Riley Moss as a true starter has given Patrick Surtain II the bookend he has needed.

But when Moss went out in Week 12 against the Las Vegas Raiders with an MCL injury. That spelled trouble. Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and defensive backs coach/passing game coordinator Jim Leonhard weren’t worried about it, because they knew what fifth-round rookie Kris Abrams-Draine had to offer. Only they would know, however, because Abrams-Draine didn’t play a single snap on defense until the 11 he put up at outside cornerback against the Cleveland Browns in Week 13. The coaches liked what they saw enough to give Abrams-Draine starting reps in Week 15 against the Indianapolis Colts after the team’s Week 14 bye, and once again last Thursday against the Los Angeles Chargers

In his three NFL games, Abrams-Draine has allowed five catches on 15 targets for 74 yards, 24 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, one interceptions, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 22.6. For a 5-foot-11, 178-pound rookie to come in and play outside cornerback at this level with no previous professional experience is quite rare.

The Broncos lost that Chargers game 34-27, but it certainly wasn’t Abrams-Draine’s fault. He was targeted four times on vertical passes and quick comebacks, and he gave up one catch for sis yards. He also bagged his first NFL interception on a deep post from Justin Herbert to receiver Josh Palmer.

“I feel like I belong, but really, it was just fun to be on the field playing with my teammates,” Abrams-Draine said after his first career start against the Colts.

Well, it’s fun when you can come into the NFL as a lockdown guy out of nowhere, and that’s exactly what Abrams-Draine has done.