Danielle Hunter still getting respect despite recent injury woes

We know that Danielle Hunter has been bitten pretty hard by the injury bug over the past couple of years. A neck injury caused him to miss all of the Minnesota Vikings’ 2020 season, while a torn pectoral muscle cost him all but seven games in 2021. Despite his injury issues, however, #99 is still getting plenty of respect.

Behind the great E$PN paywall, Jeremy Fowler has compiled a ranking of the NFL’s best pass rushers from players, coaches, and executives. While Hunter didn’t break the Top 10 this time around, he did garner an honorable mention.

Hunter is a top-10 rusher when healthy, but he has missed 26 games over the past two seasons. Still, he has 60.5 sacks in 85 career games. “A long-arm power guy. Greatest asset speed and length. Those things will always cause problems,” an AFC coach said. “I did not think he should be what he is. He certainly proved me wrong.”

The rankings don’t show any of the numbers for players that landed outside of the Top 10, such as what their high and low rankings were or anything of that nature. However, still being mentioned among the league’s best pass rushers despite playing as sparingly as Hunter has still says a lot about how he’s viewed around the league.

If Hunter delivers the kind of season that he’s shown himself to be capable of in the past, he’s going to have no problem catapulting himself back into the Top 10 on lists like this one. I, for one, am not going to bet against him.