Okay. This post is dedicated to someone who I've watched over the years. This guy is a great player and very, very underrated. Now while he gets some deserved attention he should be getting loads more.

I'm talking about, of course, Robert Mathis.

Mathis. He's known as the other Defensive End, Freeney's sidekick. But Why? Why is he so underrated? He's a GREAT player!

Maybe some of you guys are people who like big game performances. Okay. Remember the Houston game last year? His HUGE strip sack to save our playoff behind? Without that game god knows what would have happened. We could have gone playoff-less. This guy has come through when few others do. The Patriots game? 6 Tackles 2 sacks and a forced fumble is good enough for me in a big game. There are many others but i want to keep it short and recent.

Okay. for all you stat people, here are some. Mathis is averaging 9 sacks a game for his career. Thats including a 3.5 Sack rookie year and this year, with 3 games remaining. Not enough? How about him also having 2 seasons with 13 games and one with only 15, his stats look better?  He's already had 3 season with 10+ sacks and 2 seasons with 11.5. Still not impressed? He has 33 forced fumbles in 7 seasons. His sacks also average about 7.4 yards lost each.

Most impressive of all, (in my opinion) his 3rd year in the NFL. 3 years removed from being a 5th round pick from Alabama A&M, he recorded 11.5 Sacks and 7 forced fumbles. IN 13 GAMES!!!

Mathis deserves more recognition and i want to see what you guys agree. I think Freeney and Mathis is the best DE-DE combination in a while, maybe ever. Some that say that give the credit about 70-30 to Freeney. I think, honestly, the credit is maybe 60-40 is not 55-45 to Freeney. Just barely. There's little to no doubt that Freeney's better, but as opposed to people saying Mathis feeds off of Freeney, i think often Freeney feeds off of Mathis's success.

Although often unnoticed or overlooked, in my opinion, Robert Mathis ranks in the top 7 in DE's in the NFL, maybe even higher, and if he finishes his career with 3 or 4 more 7-12 sack seasons he could crack top 20 all time.