Did Bryce Huff start to turn a corner vs. Browns?

It has been a rough start to Bryce Huff’s time with the Eagles. No way around it.

Through the first four weeks of the season, Huff was a complete non-factor after signing a three-year, $51 million deal in the offseason. It was really ugly.

But things got a little better on Sunday in the first game since the bye week.

“I feel like I’ve just been leaning into the process, continuing to get better and I feel like it showed up a little bit today,” Huff said. “Playing fast.”

It wasn’t like Huff all of a sudden turned into a Pro Bowler in Sunday’s 20-16 win over the Browns. He still certainly didn’t look like a $17 million-per-year player. You might not even say he had a good game. 

At least it was at least a step in the right direction.

Huff, 26, played 31 snaps against the Browns and finally got in the stat sheet with 2 tackles, half a sack and a quarterback hit. In his first 113 snaps of the season, Huff had just two combined tackles.

In the first four games, Huff had just 2 total pressures according to ProFootballFocus. He doubled his season total with 2 more in Week 6.

The big emphasis coming back from the bye week? 

Playing faster.

That’s something the Eagles coaching staff has been working with Huff on since the bye week. They want to make sure he’s not overthinking and using his skills to be more disruptive. The hallmark of Huff’s game with the Jets was his get-off, but he agreed it can be tougher to maximize that trait in a less aggressive front.

“To an extent it does slow down a little bit,” Huff said. “But I feel like that’s what my coaches have been helping me with. Just getting faster and continuing to eliminate any thoughts and just burn off the ball. I feel like it’s helped a lot and we’re going to continue to get better at it.”

Sure, the Browns have given up more sacks and pressures than any team in the NFL this season. That’s a big caveat with the overall success of the Eagles’ pass rush in the Week 6 win.

But if Huff gained some confidence after this game, that could matter too.

“I feel like it did,” Huff said. “Up front, we just played a lot faster. If we can just continue to speed things up and impact the game, I feel like that would be great moving forward.”

With the Jets, Huff excelled in his limited role in an extremely aggressive front that allowed him to get after quarterbacks. There’s more reading and reacting in this Vic Fangio defense and that has clearly been a difficult adjustment for Huff in the early portion of this season. But aside from his struggles in the run game, Huff also hasn’t been very productive as a pass rusher and that’s more troubling because that’s supposed to be his strength.

“It’s a different scheme,” Huff said. “There’s more we have to think about, there’s more we have to be cognizant of vs. just an attack front. Which is what I played for four years with the Jets. Having to see different pulls and things I wasn’t accountable for before. I’ve just been leaning into what my coaches have been coaching me on and it has helped my game a lot.”

One tangible difference in this game was that Huff was able to utilize his four-point stance a little more and it helped him find a level of comfort in a new scheme.

This is something veteran NFL analyst Brian Baldinger pointed out after the Week 4 loss in Tampa.