[kccrow]

Originally Posted by Coogs

Interesting. I've only watched the highlight video I posted, and I don't see anything in that clip that makes me go "whoa, this guy is special". What am I missing crow?

My opinion:

Very disciplined in his assignments. He doesn't just rush with reckless abandon. He sets the edge and plays the run as well as any DE in this draft. That's important in the NFL if you're going to take a DE high. Those guys with highlight reels full of sacks but nothing else to go with it don't get me too excited. He's shown he has that anchor against tackles and he can make plays outside of that space. The other half of this is vision. He seems to know what's in front of him most of the time and he's only just getting started. He sees the run develop and maintains his gap, squares to the line, is aware of pulling guards, and absorbs those guys.

He's a really good tackler. He plants, drives and lifts through the opponent. You don't see him just glancing off guys, he's making them feel it. It's a physicality thing.

I like his hands. He has a really good swat and double-armed swat to get tackles arms off him. He has a really good rip. He has a really solid stiff arm. This shows he understands to use his length and to keep guys off his frame. If you're going to win reps in the NFL, you have to be good at keeping tackles from latching on or you lose. He's getting better at it. It's a big deal IMO and it's something where I think he really benefited from transferring to FSU because I feel like they teach the game better to the guys than Georgia does. This was also his first year starting. I think you have to take that into consideration. This guy is a pretty good player right now, just imagine a year or two of learning NFL technique so that he gets better at getting free.

He really converts speed to power well. He doesn't have a great get-off but once he's moving he can really deliver a shot. He rocks tackles backward routinely. I watched him do it at Georgia in his limited reps. Kind of a thing with those Georgia guys too is that they rotate so much that these guys don't get a ton of reps. He really worked on things at FSU and you saw him use that power to make plays. In any event, he also has solid power overall. You don't see him get driven off the line very often, or really ever. You more often see this kid bench pressing dudes than the other way around.

He played both sides but a lot at LDE. A lot more strength usually on that side. So, he was able to get used to facing strength and using his strength to offset that. His strength and power caused issues for LTs.

What I don't like right now is his very average get-off. He's kind of slow off the snap. I think a lot of that has to do with this really being his first season of playing much. A little bit of overthinking and reading pre-snap. He'll get faster off the ball, he has all the athleticism in the world. If I were a guessing man, this would be where most guys get turned off. I'm not too worried about it myself. I think he's going to improve there and I think he's going to improve his hands to fight through and make plays more quickly.

The other thing is he doesn't have an elite closing burst. He's solid, but again, I think much of it has to do with learning to see the game and process faster. He's not doing anything to hurt his team but he'd be making even more plus plays. He looked faster off the snap and faster to the finish when he knew what was coming in every game I watched. For me, it's all about reps.

He doesn't have great bend and flatten ability. Honestly, I don't know that he's been coached up on it that well. Again, he has athleticism. He has quick movement ability you can see with his spin moves and so forth.

Overall though, this is a guy that's primarily going to win with power and technique in the NFL and that's not a bad thing to me. I favor guys with power over guys that don't, so maybe that's why I think more of him than some? I've seen him comped to Cam Jordan and Preston Smith and I think those are pretty fair comparisons coming out of college. If he turns into Cam Jordan in the pros, well then he's worth every bit of trading up for. If he's Preston Smith, I'd rather get him at 29 but that is most definitely not going to happen. I think, in the draft, you're banking on him becoming the former. If you get the latter, you still have a good player.