The New York Giants and Kansas City Chiefs have some things in common heading into the playoffs.
They have the two highest-rated interior linemen in the National Football League, according to PFF: Dexter Lawrence and Chris Jones, both with a 92.0 grade.
The Top-2 interior defenders in the regular season 💪 pic.twitter.com/tCZWYRYLPB
— PFF (@PFF) January 10, 2023
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, all things considered.
For starters, Lawrence got the first Pro Bowl selection of his career, although he’s still hungry for more:
“It’s an honor, for sure, the respect that you earn around the league and the support from the fans, things like that. It’s all an honor, for sure,” Lawrence said. “I think I’m having a solid season. There’s plays I wish I could have back, opportunities I wish I would have finished on a couple of plays, but overall, I think I’ve been solid.
As for Jones, he kept notes of all the naysayers before the season, and it meant a lot more to him this time around:
“Going into the year, we had a lot of criticism of, ‘we might be the worst team in this division,'” Jones said. “Know [that] every player in that locker room and every coach in that locker room heard about it or had seen it on social media or ESPN. With all the transitions this division made like bringing in Chandler Jones or Russell Wilson and the Chargers adding Khalil Mack, they counted us out.
Now, both elite linemen will get the chance to uplift their teams when it matters the most, although they’re going to need their teammates to step up as well to have a legit shot in the postseason.
