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Malcolm Koonce, a defensive end with the Las Vegas Raiders, surprised the Silver and Black with his growth last season. He developed into a reliable complementary asset to All-Pro edge rusher Maxx Crosby.

Entering his fourth season in the NFL, Koonce had a great season last year, starting every game and recording 43 combined tackles, nine for loss, 17 quarterback hits, three forced fumbles, and eight sacks.

“I basically think that what worked last year was just having faith in myself and just going with the flow, one game at a time, without worrying about big picture stuff or what this or that is. Thus, I’ll just keep to myself.”

Koonce had the second-highest number of sacks on the team with eight, only surpassed by Crosby, who recorded a personal best of 14.5.

“[At] the beginning of the year, I kind of had a whole bunch of missed sacks, so I kind of got in the mindset of just like, ‘Don’t think about it, just rush’ to try to play as good as I can,” Koonce stated. “So then, when the sacks finally started to come, I kind of was already in the habit of just not even focusing on it, so as the stats kind of stacked up and stuff like that, I didn’t realize until after the season like, ‘Oh, I actually did something really good.'”