Brian Burns is the Panthers top defender after nine games

Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesFirst Luke Kuechly retired, then Kawann Short was lost for the season to injury. With that void in leadership the Panthers defense needed someone to step up and who better than last year’s first round pick. Burns leads the team with four sacks, which doesn’t sound like much for nine games of work but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Burns has gotten a lot of pressure on the quarterback, disrupting plays in ways that don’t show up in the box score. But it does show up in the Pro Football Focus performance grades, where Burns is the sixth-best in the NFL.

Here’s the top ten edge defenders in the NFL per Pro Football Focus:

That is some…