2021 Edge Defender Prospects

This is not a strong year on the defensive side of the ball. That’s particularly true for defensive tackles, where I don’t think any player is worth selecting in the first round, and it’s nearly as true for their counterparts on the edge. This class doesn’t have a Chase Young or a Myles Garrett or a Nick Bosa, the sort of freakish combination of skill and athleticism we’ve seen from the position in recent years. Even on the next tier of players, there isn’t much depth to be found, with a clear top tier of two players and then a bunch of question marks below them.

Kwity Paye, EDGE, Michigan

Paye doesn’t have the pure athleticism of a traditional top pass rusher, but he has enough athleticism and skill to be selected in the middle of the first round in a normal year, and in this year that may be enough to get him into the top ten. He has good size and impressive explosiveness, to go along with flashes of strength and quickness that he’s still figuring out how to harness. There are rough edges on his game, as evidenced by only 11.5 sacks over 28 college games, but he’s closer to putting it all together than most comparable athletes in this year’s class.

Paye does a very good job attacking with his hands as both a pass rusher and a run defender. At times this means swatting down on a tackle’s arms to keep himself clean on the edge, at others blasting his hands into their chest to put him in control. He has a lot of raw power, and his next move should be learning how to harness it into a traditional bull rush that would allow him to collapse the pocket from the side. Right now he never really runs through a blocker, but he does have the strength to play through indirect contact and cut down the corner to get to the quarterback.

Paye’s quickness only shows up every now and then, and he didn’t do either of the agility drills at his Pro Day that would have helped us confirm his athleticism in that part of the game. If he can bring more consistency to the inside move he showed a couple times in college, he could become a truly dangerous pass rusher on the edge, the sort with so many tools to offer that a tackle can’t prepare for them all on one play. Even if he doesn’t, I still think his floor is pretty high as an average starting edge rusher. He probably won’t be winning any sack titles, but he can be an effective piece of a versatile pass rush.

Jaelan Phillips, EDGE, Miami

Phillips doesn’t have the versatility of Paye, but in terms of pure burst around the edge he’s the clear best option in the class, and if that’s what you’re looking for primarily from your pass rushers I would understand ranking him as the top option on the board. He is quick off the ball and even more explosive at the point of contact, screaming up the field with speed that very few tackles can match. He’s extremely long, but his bend is good for his height, as he plays with good leverage and can fold around the corner to get to the quarterback on most occasions when he wins up the field.

Outside of that initial burst, Phillips boasts impressive lateral quickness that allows him to win across the opposing blocker’s face. He has a swim move that can get him untouched into the backfield, and it’s particularly deadly when he’s moved to an interior rushing position on third downs, where he can be in the quarterback’s lap before he’s even completed his drop.

Beyond these two avenues of attack, there’s really not much to Phillips’s game. Every so often he shows a strong punch that can stagger an opposing lineman backwards, but he never really does anything with it. He doesn’t use his hands at all, and if his initial rushing plan is cut off, he’s mostly a nonfactor. This lack of versatility, combined with some past concussion issues that caused him to briefly retire following his sophomore season, knock him below Paye in my book, but still clearly ahead of any other edge rusher in this class.

Joseph Ossai, EDGE, Texas

Ossai is a frenetic athlete who shows just enough skill to convince me there’s some foundation to build on at the NFL level. He’s a ways away from being ready to contribute to a professional defense as more than a rotational burst of speed on the edge, but with two or three years to hone his skills he has the potential to join the top two in this class. He’s a good, if not elite, athlete, and there are moments on the field where he looks like a dangerous pass rusher, around long stretches where he becomes totally invisible. 

Ossai possesses truly special explosive ability, as demonstrated at his Pro Day by a 41.5 inch vertical and a 10-11 broad jump, both insane numbers for a 256 pound defender. When everything is working in sync, he can erupt off the ball and race untouched up the field. More often than not, though, he has a lot of wasted motion that saps his explosive ability and prevents him from getting to the edge. When he does make it there, he has the flexibility to bend to the quarterback, but not the strength to absorb contact and cut down the angle.

The other pieces of Ossai’s game are as intermittent as his explosiveness. Every now and then he’ll leave a blocker baffled as he darts inside to make a play on the ball. Just as often he makes the blocker’s life easier by running away from his gap and getting washed down in a running play. At times he remembers he has long, useful arms, but mostly he gets swallowed up by any blocker who gets within reach of him.

I probably wouldn’t want a gamble this big in the first round, but in a year without many other options to get to the quarterback, Ossai is an interesting enough project in the second round. His career will depend largely on where he ends up and how committed he is to sanding down the very rough edges of his game. Both of these things are pretty much impossible to predict, but there is a path to see here that leads to him becoming a dangerous threat on the edge, which is more than can be said of most of the players below him on this list.

Azeez Ojulari, EDGE, Georgia

Ojulari is a good football player, in the most generic definition of the term. He’s very smart on the field, playing his position with excellent discipline and recognition. He’s rarely caught out of position or fooled by misdirection. He is also capable of doing just about anything you’d ask for from a defender. He can hold up against the run, he can run with running backs in coverage, and he can rush the passer from the edge.

The problem is that he doesn't really excel at any of these things. He’s okay in many phases of the game, but there really isn’t anywhere that he is better than average, besides perhaps intelligence and effort. There’s certainly a place for a player like this on an NFL defense, but it’s hard to justify spending a first round pick on someone who is just going to be an anonymous starter.

Ojulari fits best with the edge defenders, so fair or not he is going to be judged primarily by his pass rushing skill. In college he was a very effective rusher, winning primarily by racing up the field and bending around the outside of the tackle. This worked because he was more athletic than the tackles he faced in college, an advantage he won’t have in the NFL. He tested as a below average athlete at his Pro Day, and he never looked next-level fast on the field.

It’s an issue when a player wins primarily through athleticism and turns out to not be that great an athlete. Ojulari is going to have to find other ways to get to the quarterback in the NFL, and I just don’t see that in his game. His play strength isn’t great, and he struggles to cut down the corner through contact. Every now and then he’s able to swat a blocker’s hands away, but for the most part he doesn’t do much with his arms to give him an advantage. If he can’t run around the blocker in front of him, his only real option is to rely on pure effort and hope he can get a cleanup sack. That’s going to be his game in the NFL as well, because I just don’t see the athleticism or the skill of an elite pass rusher.

Jayson Oweh, EDGE, Penn State

It’s hard to figure out where to put Oweh on this list, because he really isn’t comparable to any of these other players. With the others teams will be trying to figure out how to balance different combinations of skill and athleticism. In the case of Oweh, it’s only about athleticism. There’s no way to compare his pass rushing skills to the others in this class, because he has no pass rushing skills. He’s a project that is going to need to be built more or less from the ground up.

But when it comes to pure physical ability, he is probably the most talented player in this draft class at any position. He’s 6-5 and 257 pounds, and he runs a 4.36 forty with a 39.5 inch vertical and an 11-2 broad jump. He is a certified freak of the sort you normally can’t find outside the top five of the draft, and that’s why someone is bound to bite on him in the first round even if there’s a decent chance they’re taking someone who will never be able to contribute on an NFL field.

More than any other position pass rush is dominated by pure athleticism, and Oweh has what it takes to be one of those game-altering forces on the edge. There are cases of players who didn’t really produce as pass rushers in college and then turned into elite threats in the NFL, most notably Danielle Hunter. But where Hunter was largely limited in college because LSU refused to put him on the edge, Oweh was given every opportunity to succeed at Penn State and simply didn’t. He only started playing football five years ago, so that’s clearly part of the explanation, but even by these standards having zero sacks during his final season is concerning.

Oweh looks every bit as athletic on the field as he did in his Pro Day tests, but not in any way that’s particularly useful. He flies all over the field, but not with any real direction. He’s at his most dangerous on the backside of a running play, when he can chase running backs down from behind and doesn’t have to worry about dealing with blockers.

As a pass rusher he shows the tools he needs to succeed, just none of the coordination to put them together. He explodes off the ball, then seems to gear it down when he draws even with the tackle. He gets in position to bend around the corner, then stands upright and lets himself be pushed upfield. He darts with impossible speed across a blocker’s face to an inside gap, then stops dead in his tracks with any contact to his chest.

What do you do with a player like this? I have no damn clue. I wouldn’t spend a first round pick on someone who doesn’t know how the play the position I’d want him to play, but with each passing pick it would get harder to look away from his potential upside. Everyone believes they can be the ones to unlock a player’s potential, and no one in the draft has more potential than Oweh. In the second round, in a year with very few options at the pass rush position, I’d be willing to throw caution to the wind and make this mistake.

Gregory Rousseau, EDGE, Miami

When he’s just standing still it’s hard not to be awed by what Rousseau brings to the table. He is the most well-built edge defender in the class, standing nearly 6-7 and weighing 266 pounds with arms that seem to hang down to his knees. He has athleticism that flashes in certain ways as well and this, combined with 15.5 sacks in 2019, had him in discussions as a top ten prospect early in the draft process, before people started really looking at his game and understanding his limitations. 

There’s a lot to like about Rousseau on paper, but there are some glaring holes in his game that I don’t think can really be patched over. He isn’t very explosive, either testing as an athlete or on the field. He doesn’t get a fast start up the field, and his long frame is a bit stiff when he tries to turn the corner. These two pieces together mean that he really doesn’t pose a threat as an outside rusher. He can sometimes fold the corner down by playing with power and turning the opposing tackle’s shoulder, but most of the time he is easily cut off from the quarterback.

So how did he end up with so many sacks if he isn’t good at rushing the passer in a traditional way? Some of it is luck, and some of it is also that he’s dangerous as an interior attacker. He’s too quick for most guards to handle, and he’s good at getting skinny and plunging through a gap between blockers. He’ll have a role in the NFL as a rotational interior rusher in pass-first situations, and he can probably be very dangerous in this limited situation.

I think the best course for Rousseau going forward would be to lean into his strengths and forget about his weaknesses. He should add another 15-20 pounds of bulk and learn to play as an anchor on the edge in the run game, before unleashing himself as a pass rushing threat on third downs and late in games. He isn’t going to be able to threaten the quarterback on every play, so he should try to find some way to get on the field and contribute as more than just a situational player. I think he could be a useful piece for a defense in the right circumstances, and I’d be fine grabbing him in the second round understanding the upside doesn’t match what he might look like on paper.

Carlos Basham, DT/EDGE, Wake Forest

Basham is another player who is going to struggle to win with a traditional edge pass rush. He actually has a decent first step off the ball, but he really doesn’t accelerate from there, and despite some impressive athletic testing numbers he really doesn’t have the flexibility to bend once he gets to the corner. He’s much more effective as an interior rusher where he can shoot through gaps and cause chaos in the middle, but even there he has enough issues that I would hesitate to take him before the third round.

It still isn’t clear to me what Basham’s long-term position will be. He weighed in at 274 pounds at his Pro Day, but I think he clearly shed some pounds from his playing weight to test better and to try to make it clear he believes he’s an edge rusher. He definitely has the frame to support close to 300 pounds, and at times watching him I feel like he could be an intriguing defensive tackle. But he’ll have to add genuine strength in addition to his weight, as he’s weirdly inconsistent with how he handles contact. At times he can absorb punches from offensive linemen as if they aren’t there and drive them deep into the backfield to ruin plays. At other times he struggles to take advantage of the leverage his initial burst can win him, and he can even be moved backwards when he isn’t ready for an aggressive block as a run defender. 

The uncertainty about his position could cause Basham to slide in the draft, but I think there’s a way to carve out a role for him. He’ll have to reshape his body, most crucially adding strength to whatever position he ends up playing. But there’s a way for him to contribute right away as a situational pass rusher on the interior as he figures out the rest of it.

Joe Tryon, EDGE, Washington

You more or less know what you’re going to get when you select Tryon. He doesn’t carry much risk of being totally unplayable, but he doesn’t bring much potential to develop into an elite pass rusher either. He’ll be a solid starter who will maybe top out around eight sacks in a season, and would be a pretty good option as a secondary threat across from a true elite pass rusher. He’s an average athlete with an average basket of skills, and that makes him pretty much perfect as a selection in the third round.

The best tool Tryon has in his arsenal is lateral quickness. He’s capable of some sharp cuts to cross a blocker’s face and knife through an interior gap, at times getting him untouched into the quarterback’s lap. This will be a challenge to pull off in the NFL however, as tackles will sit waiting for this without much fear of being beaten around the edge. Tryon doesn’t have great burst off the ball, and he is stymied pretty easily by just about any contact. He can develop some more play strength, but he gets pushed around regularly enough that I doubt he’ll ever be even average at this in the NFL.

Physicality is an issue as a run defender as well, where he is probably the worst of the defenders I studied. Not only does he get moved backwards at the point of attack, he has a tendency to freelance and abandon his gap. This is one thing that absolutely has to change as he moves to the next level. You can live with defenders doing this when they’re the sort of special athletes who can generate negative plays. Tryon won’t be that guy at the next level, and the biggest adjustment he’s going to have to make is to accept that he is just a role player in the NFL.