This is overall a fairly weak draft class, but it still has a decent amount of talent when it comes to getting after the quarterback. There aren’t any clear superstar edge rushers this year—no Myles Garrett or Chase Young or even a Bosa—but there are a handful who should go in the top half of the first round, and have the potential to develop into stars if they can round out their game to match their athleticism.
Jalen Carter, DT, Georgia
On film Carter is the best non-quarterback player in the draft, and it isn’t particularly close. He’s the sort of dominant, game-wrecking force that comes around about once every five years, and at a position that has never been more important in the NFL. His ability to play with both strength and speed makes him lethal against both the run and the pass, as he alternates between tossing linemen aside and shooting past them into the backfield. It is almost impossible to single-block him, and there is really no way to stop him from impacting the game.
The crazy thing about Carter is that he is the best player in the draft right now and also has a ton of room to grow. His greatest asset is his strength, and he knows how to use that, regularly coming off the ball and blasting opposing linemen three yards deep into the backfield. His ability to use his hands to shed contact is incredible as well, as blockers just seem to bounce off of him without impacting his rush. There are moments where he deploys lightning-quickness to shoot into the backfield as well, but also moments where his footwork gets sloppy beneath him and he ends up just kind of churning in space rather than making progress up the field. He has the physical ability to add this element to his game, and I expect it will show up more consistently in a couple of years.
I wouldn’t describe Carter as a raw prospect, but he’s the sort of player where even the normal level of skill you see from a college defensive linemen feels far short of his potential. The biggest issue I see is that he never really has a secondary plan when his first attack fails (something he’s never really needed, because his first plan rarely fails). He can get tremendous push into the backfield, but if the opposing lineman is able to sustain the block, Carter will drift a little high and can then be moved off his spot. He doesn’t always bend great in the backfield, so sometimes he settles for disruption rather than actual tackles for a loss. These are things he may be able to improve on in the NFL, and if he can this is a Hall of Fame level talent.
Based solely on what he does on the field, Carter is worthy of being the first player taken in just about any draft year. But of course, there are some very clear red flags around him as well. He’s had about as bad a pre-draft process as a player can have, with an arrest for involvement in a fatal car crash followed by an abysmal Pro Day that saw him show up overweight and quit before completing the drills. This certainly didn’t help assuage the other big concern I have about him, which is that he was only a part-time player in college. Georgia was talented enough and deep enough to keep a constant rotation on their line, but in the NFL a player drafted this high will be expected to play almost every snap for his defense. I’m in no position to offer judgment about his character or his work ethic, but those are the only things that I can see that could possibly hold him back from becoming a dominant superstar in the NFL.
Will Anderson, EDGE, Alabama
Anderson is an odd prospect. On the one hand, it’s hard to deny his production on the field, where he has been one of the best players in college football over the past three seasons, racking up 34.5 sacks and 58.5 tackles for a loss. On the other hand, he’s not what you typically look for in an elite edge rusher. He doesn’t have great size or length, and he doesn’t have a lot of experience coming screaming off the edge. Most of his production in college came in kind of an odd role as a stand-up linebacker who drifted around the line and shot through interior gaps to get into the backfield, a role that simply doesn’t exist on most defenses. When he reaches the NFL, he will either need his coaches to adapt to him or he will need to do things he wasn’t often asked to do in college.
This isn’t to say that I don’t think he can do these things, just that I’m a little wary because I haven’t actually seen it yet. His first-step off the ball is incredible, and he frequently shoots through gaps on the interior of the line to make plays deep in the backfield. He attacks with heavy hands and can toss blockers aside to get free to make a tackle. He didn’t have a lot of opportunities to display his flexibility bending around a corner, but it showed up in smaller doses playing through traffic or coming on stunts. If he puts all these things together, he can be absolutely lethal coming around the corner.
Even if he doesn’t do this, he can still become a very good player, just maybe not the dominant pass rusher he was in college. His quickness in tight spaces will still be enough to get him six or seven sacks a year, but I don’t think he’s as physically dominant as someone like Micah Parsons, who wins with a similar style while being more athletic than Anderson. There’s a chance he settles into more of a Jadeveon Clowney role, a dominant run defender who just doesn’t have the juice around the corner to regularly threaten offenses with his pass rush.
This is still a valuable player, and it’s realistically the worst-case scenario for Anderson. The best case scenario is that he finds the perfect situation in the NFL where he can bounce around all over the line and win by attacking in different ways, the sort of player who reshapes what you can do on defense and needs to be accounted for on every play by the opposing offense. He isn’t the sort of sure-thing I’d like to see from a top five selection, but he has enough upside that it would be hard to let him fall out of the top ten.
Myles Murphy, EDGE, Clemson
Murphy is a big, explosive athlete who has all the tools you look for but is still figuring out how to put it all together. He already has down the first thing any pass rusher needs, which is a speed rush that can challenge any tackle around the edge. His first step off the ball is the best in the class, and his bend is remarkable for someone his size. He doesn’t play as big as he is though, and at times his rush can be forced wide if the tackle lands a punch on him. But he’s also pretty good with his hands at keeping himself clean, and once he turns the corner he can power through contact to make a play on the quarterback.
The tools are there for Murphy, but he’s still a bit more inconsistent than I’d like to see. His play strength comes and goes from play to play. Sometimes he can pull off an impressive bull rush to get deep into the backfield and shed the blocker to make a play on the quarterback. But just as often he totally fails, and gets no push whatsoever.
He’ll need to find more consistency with his power, because right now it is the only secondary move he has. He doesn’t do much with his hands aside from defensive moves to keep himself clean, and he is not a threat to cut across a blocker’s face and attack the inside. He tested extraordinarily well, but on the field he looks like just an okay athlete in space. He doesn’t seem to have much lateral agility, and I worry this will limit his upside to being just a pure edge attacker. This is what holds him back from being a truly elite edge rushing prospect, but I would still feel fine about grabbing him just outside the top ten and counting on him becoming at least a solid threat coming around the corner.
Tyree Wilson, EDGE, Texas Tech
Wilson is a tricky prospect who scares me in both good and bad ways. On the good side, he is an absolute physical marvel who is instantly recognizable on the field simply by being bigger than everyone else around him. At the Combine he measured 6-6 and 271 with 35-inch arms, and honestly I was surprised those numbers weren’t bigger. And yet for a player that size, he moves remarkably well. An injury has kept him from doing any athletic tests before the draft, but on the field he shows elite bend that combines with his strength to cut a sharp corner through contact straight into the quarterback’s lap.
Wilson is frustrating because most of the tools are there, and it’s easy to imagine him putting them all together into an unblockable force. He uses his long arms to attack into an opposing lineman’s chest with force to stagger him back a couple steps, and when he has an angle he can push through that and make a play in the backfield. But he doesn’t seem to have the leg drive to win with a consistent bull rush, so if the blocker can stay square he can usually keep the pocket clean. Wilson gets in good position, and then doesn’t have the technique to rip or swim his way free and make a play.
Similarly, he can bring a tremendous rush off the corner when he gets upfield of the tackle, but his first step off the line is underwhelming to say the least. He spent a lot of time in college rushing from a two-point stance, which seems like an absolute waste of his ability. At times he bounced inside to come out of a three-point stance, and he was much more explosive shooting into the backfield. But it’s hard to say for sure that it will translate to the edge without actually seeing it.
There is a ton of upside with Wilson and a ton of downside as well. He has the physical makeup that almost every elite pass rusher in the NFL has—though I’d feel better if we had actual testing numbers to back that up—but he simply doesn’t have the college production that typically translates to the next level. There are players who have made this jump, but also elite athletes who have fallen far short. But the potential is enticing enough that I’d still be willing to take a gamble in the middle of the first round.
Will McDonald, EDGE, Iowa State
The top three edge defenders are all pretty tightly bunched, and after them there’s a big drop to the next tier, which is made up of excellent athletes who haven’t yet shown the pieces on film. Of the players on this tier, McDonald has the best tape by far, though it comes with a couple big red flags. The first is his age. At 22 years old with five college seasons under his belt, I’d expect him to be more advanced on the field than others that are just three years removed from high school. He is good with his hands and never gets caught up on blocks, and he has an excellent array of secondary moves to beat blockers to the inside. The fact that he has these skills right now is definitely a plus, though I’m less excited by them than I would be if I saw them from a younger player.
The other big issue with McDonald is his size. He’s only 239 pounds, which limits his flexibility in the NFL. It will be hard to put him consistently down on the line, though that was what he primarily did in college, and he held up reasonably well when he was attacked as a run defender. He has long arms and a powerful punch that he can use to gain leverage, which keeps opposing linemen from pushing him backwards. But it will be tougher against NFL size and strength, and I think his best path is to play as a stand-up linebacker in a 3-4 scheme.
This is the other tricky part of McDonald, because he so rarely played as wide as he likely will in the NFL. He mostly lined up head-up over the tackle in a 3-man front, and very rarely was he asked to attack with a genuine edge rush. The concerning part is that on the rare occasion he was asked to do so, he showed very little explosiveness off the ball. He tested as a phenomenal athlete, and it’s possible he may figure this out in the NFL. But in college McDonald very rarely won with speed around the edge. He didn’t get off the ball fast, and while he looks like he has good bend and flexibility, he didn’t have the play-strength to cut the corner down. Most of his pressures came either from inside moves or from pure effort late in plays, the sort of things that are less consistent and less valuable in the NFL.
So where does that leave McDonald in terms of value? If he can develop this burst, he has the potential to be a high-end pass rusher. But given his age, I’m less bullish about his development than other players in the class. I think it’s more likely that he’ll settle in as a solid if unspectacular starter who is somewhat limited by scheme. He’s a smart player, and he is excellent in space, suggesting he could bring a lot of value as a versatile linebacker, even if he doesn’t have the juice as a pure pass rusher to justify a selection in the first twenty picks.
Nolan Smith, EDGE, Georgia
On paper Smith is a similar player to McDonald, They are about the same size, though Smith doesn’t have the advantage of McDonald’s long arms. They both tore up the pre-draft athletic testing, with Smith coming out with the edge here, putting up outrageous numbers like a 4.39 forty and a 41.5-inch vertical. Smith spent four years in college, but his final year was mostly erased by injury, so there might be more room for him to grow after reaching the NFL, though right now he shows little enough on film that I see him more as an athletic gamble in the second round.
On film Smith certainly shows up as a twitchy athlete, very good in space and comfortable dropping into coverage. He’ll also likely be best suited to a linebacker role that keeps him away from the middle of the field where things will get congested, and that was largely the position he played at Georgia. This likely will make his transition easier than McDonald’s, as will his natural burst which, while not as impressive as his numbers would indicate, at least occasionally gets him up the field in position for a dangerous edge rush.
The problem with Smith is that he shows basically nothing else as a pass rusher. His first step is good, and his second step is even better, but there isn’t much else to his game besides this pure speed. He has good agility when playing in space but never deploys it in the pass rush. He can occasionally strike with his hands to get the blocker off-balance, but most of the time he gets pushed around by any amount of contact. He has no counter-moves, nothing in his arsenal to keep opposing tackles honest, and he even displays less bend than I’d expect. Right now the only way he can contribute on an NFL defense is as a situational rusher who comes in for 10-15 snaps a game to come screaming off the edge. In time he may be able to harness his absurd athleticism and become a dangerous pass rusher, but it is going to take a lot of work.
Lukas Van Ness, EDGE/DT, Iowa
Smith is a prospect who requires some work to develop him into an NFL-caliber player. Van Ness is someone who needs built entirely from scratch. His testing numbers are certainly eye-popping, showing elite speed and agility from someone who is 6-5 and 272 pounds, and there are moments when you can see pieces of this on the field, as he moves in ways you don’t expect someone his size to move. But these movements very rarely have any real purpose behind them, and he has nothing in his arsenal beyond raw physicality that shows up every now and then as highlight plays that are easy to fall in love with if you ignore all the other plays where he’s a complete non-factor.
I have to analyze Van Ness in two different roles. As an edge rusher I see basically nothing. He doesn’t get up the field particularly fast, and I didn’t see even a single play where he got the edge on the opposing tackle. Most of the time he didn’t even try, going straight for the chest and trying to bull-rush his way through. He was less effective doing this than I would expect for someone of his size, and even when he got in good position, the tackles were able to set their feet and anchor against him. He showed no tools to disengage from contact, and the only mildly interesting thing I saw was a sharp inside-cut that got him in good position but once again he was unable to turn into genuine pressure.
Van Ness was more impressive when asked to play defensive tackle, though it still came in spurts, and would require him to make serious adjustments in the NFL if this becomes a regular role. His first step is more impressive on the inside, where he can occasionally get into a gap and create some chaos behind the line. His bull rush is also more meaningful on the interior, where he can cause problems for the quarterback just by driving the guard into his lap without the need to separate and actually make a tackle. But in this role he was also pushed around some in the running game, which will become only more of an issue in the NFL. He’d probably need to add at least 20 pounds to make the switch to defensive tackle, and it’s impossible to predict how much of his quickness he'd lose if he did this.
Just based on the small handful of impressive plays he put on film, I’d think of Van Ness as a sixth or seventh round pick, someone who probably won’t turn into anything but is at least worth a look. Toss in his rare athletic numbers, and I’d say it’s worth a gamble in the fourth or fifth. But I think the most likely scenario is that he never turns into even an average NFL starter.
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