Target Board: Defensive Tackle Day One: Star Lotulelei, Sharrif Floyd, Sylvester Williams Day Two: Kawann Short Day Three: Kwame Geathers, Darrington Sentimore, Chris Jones, Josh Boyd, T.J. Barnes Star Lotulelei and Sharrif Floyd are elite caliber players at the position. They are the Ndamukong Suh and Gerald McCoy players. I feel like their games have been picked apart to where people are very familiar with them already. I therefore will not spend a great deal of time detailing what stands out about their abilities. Pulling up the trail behind them won't be Sheldon Richardson, whose position fit is a question, but rather Sylvester Williams who comes closest to putting a complete game together. He's pretty close to presenting a complete array of skills for a defensive tackle, in the mold of Sharrif Floyd. He has the full combination of lateral and straight ahead quickness, the hands and core movement ability to get around players and challenge their outside shoulder, and the strength to be very difficult to handle in run blocking schemes. His athletic ability makes him a player that you would believe will play a lot of downs at the next level. He needs to work on stamina. Sheldon Richardson continues to scare me as to what position is best for him and whether the NFL will play him at that position. I think he needs to be pulled out to end, either in a 3-4 or even in a 4-3. Fletcher Cox was a little bit like this last year, but I think Richardson is even more so. Cox was viable as a true defensive tackle and I'm not sure Richardson is. I don't know if he's purely strong enough to be a defensive tackle. He uses his hands well but doesn't show aggressive, straight ahead strength. For being a guy that will probably immediately find a niche as an interior pass rusher in nickel packages, I don't see him being effective that way on tape enough. I think of him as actually a pretty compelling defensive end in the mold of a Datone Jones. I would have Kawann Short next. His athleticism is not going to impress you but his hand technique and constant ability to shed are what you need at the position. He's strong, too. Very productive behind the line of scrimmage because he's so good with his hands. You're looking for guys that can make plays behind the line of scrimmage and that's Kawann Short. He'd rank higher for me but I don't think he has quite the physical impressiveness of Sylvester Williams. The hand use and the first step off the snap are right where you want them. He reads plays well and has a very good sense of what he needs to be doing play to play. I watch him play and I keep just hearing the word "professional" in my head. I think he's a starter. He's just not going to motor around and make very many athletic looking plays. There's been a lot of talk about Jordan Hill lately. I like the player but I'm a little reluctant to call him a complete player that can be relied upon. I think for now he's a nickel player. He's built really low to the ground and very well muscled. He has extraordinary lateral agility, more so than a Sylvester Williams or someone like that. He's harder to block in pass protection than Sylvester Williams. The hand use is quick, lots of quick strikes and he uses his feet well to follow up. But his size is really problematic. He does a decent job keeping blockers off him by keeping his hands away from his body, but there's no way for it with his size he can be overwhelmed. He also plays on the ground a lot. He compares favorably with Mike Martin coming out of Michigan, or Derek Landri coming out of Notre Dame. Chris Jones of Bowling Green is an interesting case study comparison with a Jordan Hill. He doesn't quite have the same hand use as Hill although he's very similar in that regard. He's a little too in love with the spin move and I'd prefer he keep his pads square more often. But he plays a LOT like Hill with the same kind of lateral agility and stout build. He's physically more impressive, taller with a better build, more athletic. These guys are similar and it boils down to the classic battle of one guy having a little more upside with the other guy having a little more polish. But for now, I think both guys are more nickel players. I think if you subbed out Jordan Hill from Penn State's system and subbed in Chris Jones, you'd get similar production and similar players. They're both savvy pass rushing, penetrating guys. I'd be interested in either player as sub package players that I might groom into something more. But you have to remember that the real problem with guys like this is a lot of the time you move a bigger defensive end inside on these same sub packages, and you just get a more interesting player. Perfect example would be a Datone Jones. You move him into the inside and you've got a guy that looks more active, athletic and interesting than either Hill or Jones. One name that you really have not heard near enough in the press that fits in with the above two players is Tennessee's Darrington Sentimore. If you watch his Alabama game you see him playing defensive end and giving the standout duo of D.J. Fluker and Cyrus Kouandjio a hard time...with speed. His power had a lot to do with his success in that game and others as well, but this is a guy that reminds me a lot of Randy Starks, or Glenn Dorsey before he got fat. Sentimore is a bundle of energy, nastiness, and explosive ability. He would rate higher, but between his size at 6'2" and 290 lbs and his position flexibility, he gives the look of a classic "tweener". Either way, I would absolutely welcome him onto the team and I believe he will be playing at the NFL level for a while. His immediate fit is probably going to be either in a 3-4 defense, or in nickel sub packages. However, it wouldn't surprise me if he grew into a full time defensive tackle. I look at the Georgia pair of John Jenkins and Kwame Geathers and I'm reminded of a familiar situation. The situation reminds me of 2010 when it seemed for a while Jeff Owens was the guy that everyone loved, while Geno Atkins was a little bit more under the radar. That's not how it ended up by draft day, the media started to catch up A LITTLE with just how good Geno Atkins was. I kept watching tape of Owens and always ended up watching Atkins, thought he had 1st round written all over him. I still can't figure why he went in the 4th round. I thought for sure 2nd round, 3rd at the latest, and a late 1st wouldn't have surprised me. He was one of my favorite players in that Draft. Meanwhile Jeff Owens seemed to disappoint whenever I watched him. I wasn't seeing it. Fast forward and we're in a similar situation with John Jenkins and Kwame Geathers. The players themselves are not at all comparable. Both Owens and Atkins were smaller, more athletic guys. Both Geathers and Jenkins are BIG UGLIES. But Jenkins just isn't as active as I would like, doesn't keep blockers off his body or use his hands quickly. Way too often he expends a lot of energy to do very little. He's a very BIG man and so in some respects he's going to be tough to move out of the spot simply by right. He's got decent hand use but they're not active enough nor are his feet active enough and he's especially not active in his CORE with his back and ability to move his body. His core movements just are not fast at all. I love looking at these guys in pairs because they really emphasize the similarities and strengths. To me, I see Kwame Geathers as the version of John Jenkins that works at the next level. Geathers is a massively-framed individual with great big, heavy bones and long arms. He's not just some fat guy. He's not an ice box. He's a great big woolly mammoth. The frame is utterly fantastic. He's 6053 and 342 lbs with 35.5 inch arms, and a huge lower half. This is just an extraordinarily large human being and he's hell for offensive linemen to handle simply because of that size and frame. Watching he and Larry Warford battle one another snap after snap during the Kentucky-Georgia game was like watching the polar bear battle in The Golden Compass. What's great about Geathers is how ACTIVE he is at that size. He's so unlike John Jenkins that way. He's active with his feet, active with his hands, and very active with his CORE, able to expend a lot of explosive energy snap for snap. He's more explosive than he has any right to be at 342 lbs (29 inch vertical, 8'7" broad jump), and I even see the guy motoring down the field athletically and making plays that way (click the link). Watch him play against Alabama's offensive line, which gives trouble to pretty much any defensive front seven player it faces. He stood out. He is your absolutely classic planet theory guy. Even though that phrase is tossed around a lot, it's very rarely assigned properly. I think Geathers is the epitome of the correct usage of the term. There are only so many guys with this kind of size and frame, this kind of strength, that can move this way snap for snap and expend this kind of explosive energy in the trenches at that size. I think he will be playing at the NFL level for a long time. Whether he's ever more than sort of a two-down Paul Soliai kind of guy, that remains to be seen. Continuing with that theme of looking at players in pairs, it's nice to look at a Kwame Geathers next to a T.J. Barnes because these guys are similar in some key ways. Barnes has another planet theory FRAME. The guy is an absolute beast at 6062 and 369 lbs. That's enormous. And he's got an enormous total frame. He's not just 370 lbs because he's fat. To me, Barnes is the player that Kwame Geathers would be, if Geathers were a little less savvy, a little less active of a football player. Like Geathers, there is no earthly reason a man this big with this kind of frame should be able to move the way he does, in some ways. Watch him defeat a cut block and pop up, change directions breaking down and giving chase after the ball in space, your mind is boggled. But he doesn't get off the ball the same, isn't as active in his core as Geathers. Most importantly, he's much less aware. Because of this, because he's not as proactive and not as aware, he can be blocked and steered by players you wouldn't expect could take out a guy like this. When he's firing in a focused way, you're just going to have a tough time with this guy. He can overwhelm you. But those instances are a little too far in between right now. Part of me says that T.J. Barnes is a great example of where the planet theory starts to collapse in on itself, as you've gone into too far of an extreme end of it. There are too many plays on the football field where the onus is on the defense to find the ball, and he's not great on those plays. But then again, there are still a lot of plays where the offense has to try and move people out of a spot where they want the ball to be able to go through, and on those plays you're not going to get a much more effective road block than T.J. Barnes. In the end, I think he's a great weapon to have in your arsenal to where you can coach him, try and bring him along, and then use him on plays where you think you know what's coming. But, Kwame Geathers is the guy that has the more elite potential. He's a bit lighter, moves better, more active, more football aware. He's a planet theory guy without being too extreme. Continuing this train of thought, the problem I have with a Johnathan Hankins is that even though physically he looks different from the above two guys (Geathers and Barnes), and on paper you're not going to be reminded of them at all, his functional effectiveness on the football field is very similar. He is laterally limited. The problem with planet theory guys like Kwame Geathers and T.J. Barnes is that no matter how effectively they plug their patch of field, they're still just defending narrow patch of field, especially as the NFL finds ways to stretch the field horizontally. Johnathan Hankins as a prospect can be criticized on that basis. He is an arrow-forward player. He isn't comfortable unless he's got his shoulders square and his hands engaged with a blocker. But for being that kind of player, he doesn't show a gift for seeing the play with enough time to shed the block and make a play on the football. And as I said before, his lateral movement skills are left wanting, so there's only so much functional range for him to get off the block and get to the football. I believe he will fit best as a two-gap defensive end in the mold of a Kendall Langford, but he may not be effective until/unless he has enough experience that he is reading the play quickly so that he can make up for his lateral limitations by positioning himself strategically earlier in the play's development, and can begin shedding the block with enough time to make a play on the football. Jesse Williams may be criticized on the same basis, as a player that will not find the football so much as the football will find him. However, where I think he differs from Hankins is that, like the planet theory guys, he's purely stronger and more difficult to handle. He can knock blockers back more effectively with his strength and explosiveness. He's more consistent in his ability to shed the block and get to the football. He's also got better speed and athleticism, which translates on the field into a better motor. He stays on his feet very well and does more with physical strength to make blockers uncomfortable, knocking them off balance. He actually compares favorably to Star Lotulelei in some respects. However, without the same explosive power or ability to steer his way laterally to the right spot, while engaged with the blocker, you can't claim that Jesse Williams will be the same player at the next level. Lotulelei has more lateral burst. Brandon Williams concerns me a little in that he plays short-armed. This is opposed to a Jordan Hill who plays blockers off his body a lot better. What Williams has going for him is that he's a big icebox looking guy, strong, and yet he runs a lot faster than he has a right to. That will help him to run AROUND some blockers and perhaps beat them to spots in the zone, but with his hand technique and the way he plays with his hands and his build, I'm not sure you like him as a starter at the next level. He kind of reminds me of Steven Fifita, if you remember that guy. There's a savviness there, like there was with Fifita, but also physical limitations which aren't necessarily described by his pure numbers-on-a-page size & speed metrics. The straight ahead strength is better than Fifita's ever was, so that's something. It's hard for me to really get a bead on Montori Hughes. What I know of him is based on what I saw at the Senior Bowl. I get that he's got a nice frame, build, good athleticism for it, but he's so inconsistent play to play. On some plays he looks like he's playing reckless without being explosive, and that's a bad combination. Other plays he looks more explosive and penetrating, taking advantage of weaknesses in the blocking scheme. I'm not sure he's got good upper body strength based on the tape. The tape observation is supported by his disappointing on the bench at the Combine. He's kind of a guy at times that plays right into the hands of savvy guards and interior linemen, and then at other times he's sniffing out the softest spot in the blocking scheme and really exploiting the hell out of it explosively. I've watched Cory "Porkchop" Grissom play at USF for years. Given my predisposition toward USF players I sometimes get people a little surprised that I'm not talking about Porkchop more. I always try and be very honest about the legitimate prospects of players coming out of USF. You heard me singing the praises of the likes of Mistral Raymond and Jacquain Williams, but you didn't hear me bragging all over Terrell McClain or Carlton Mitchell. That's a good example. Some guys that come from the program, I see what there is to like, and some guys I don't. Grissom is a nice try-hard player with a build and playing style that reminds you of Jordan Hill (which in turn will remind you of a Mike Martin, Derek Landri), but he doesn't play with as long arms or ability to keep blockers off him, nor does he quite have the lateral agility. This makes him sort of a poor man's version of these guys, and it makes me less interested in him. He plays with a nice wide base, but he's just not a threat to move aggressively to the football. Bennie Logan actually strikes a few similarities with me when it comes to comparing him to the iron pyrite prospect that was Terrell McClain. Logan plays with great, low pad level and a really good back, always playing behind his pads. He's strong enough to hold his own in single blocking and can use his hands enough to shed blocks. However, in the end I don't think he does enough to really challenge blockers, or to dominate them either with strength, size or athletic ability. He's sort of your classic all-round mediocre defensive tackle prospect, jack of all trades and master of none. It would be interesting to see if a guy like this can really find his niche at the next level and persist as a professional football player, but my gut tells me that he will not. Like Terrell McClain, I see some things that will have teams intrigued. But like Terrell McClain, I won't be surprised when that excitement turns to disappointment that he's not more, and so the team's eyes start wandering back to the draft to find someone better. Akeem Spence is a really interesting guy to try and figure out. He's small, no denying that. But he's really active with his hands, his feet and his core, especially laterally. He's got good leverage because he's not particularly tall. His hands might be the most active and quickest of the sub-elite defensive tackles, but certainly not the most powerful or vicious. He's a conundrum because in some ways he's so active you imagine him being a penetrating guy and making plays behind the line of scrimmage, including in pass rush. But really he's a highly ineffective pass rusher, not productive at all that way. He's not aggressive enough vertically, not powerful enough. He's got the ability to move, and he's explosive, it's just not being used in a way that collapses the pocket and perhaps that is something that can be worked on. In the mean time the vision I have for him is as a nose in the nickel defense. You need a guy that can spy the quarterback, keep working his hands, and defend the middle of the line even when you're in nickel and you start attacking the edges to try and rush the passer. To me, that's Akeem Spence. In that way, you might actually look at him as a replacement for Tony McDaniel, although the downgrade in pure size might not be something you're in for. There's a tremendous amount of wasted energy in Josh Boyd's game. In some ways that is a turn off, but in some ways it attracts you to him. You're looking for guys that fit a certain size/strength/speed profile that can expend ridiculous amounts of energy on the interior as these guys all bump heads with one another and wrestle around. He has the makings but not the training or technique. He can move, clearly. You see his wide receiver-like 7.16 in the cone drill and that's going to grab your attention on a 6'3" and 310 lbs behemoth that can turn around and do 32 bench reps. The potential is there. But he spends so much energy on shuck and jive when he could be doing things more efficiently. This is another term that's tossed around too often in situations where I don't feel it appropriate, but in this case I like it, and that is a guy being a raw, "piece of clay" or some such. That's how I view Boyd. The makings of a real starter are right there in front of you. But you've got to coach him and help him modify his mentality a little bit to being a more efficient, effective player. More deliberate in his strikes and his movements. Do that and you actually have something here. Everett Dawkins is kind of a sawed-off shotgun. He's got the body, the build, some core explosiveness and athleticism. His initial onslaught can be effective. But he's more of a guy that fires off his round...and then that's it. He's not very good at adjusting, bending, moving, doing all the things from snap to whistle that help you find the ball and make plays. When he tries to do these things, he ends up on the ground a lot. Basically, he's good for about half of the play. He's got to be able to learn to reset and fire again and again during the play, without losing his balance and ending up on the carpet. Defensive Tackle Position Ranking 01. Star Lotulelei, Utah 02. Sharrif Floyd, Florida 03. Sylvester Williams, North Carolina 04. Kawann Short, Purdue 05. Jesse Williams, Alabama 06. Sheldon Richardson, Missouri 07. Kwame Geathers, Georgia 08. Jordan Hill, Penn State 09. Darrington Sentimore, Tennessee 10. Chris Jones, Bowling Green 11. Josh Boyd, Mississippi State 12. Akeem Spence, Illinois 13. Johnathan Hankins, Ohio State 14. T.J. Barnes, Georgia Tech 15. John Jenkins, Georgia 16. Brandon Williams, Missouri Southern 17. Montori Hughes, Tennessee-Martin 18. Bennie Logan, LSU 19. Cory "Porkchop" Grissom, South Florida 20. Everett Dawkins, Florida State Athletic Wildcards: Nicholas Williams (Samford), Lawrence Okoye (no college), Jared Smith (New Hampshire), Zach Minter (Montana State), Brian Arnfelt (Northwestern)
Just curious what makes you call Jordan Hill small (or rather why is his size so problematic)? He's 6'1 and like 303 lbs. That's roughly the same size as Short. I've seen Hill a lot more than Short, so I won't claim to know how they compare, I just never thought of Hill's size as an issue before (nor have I seen anyone mention it before you).
Great write up, Chris. IMO Jordan Hill & Chris Jones are the closest thing to representing a mid round Kyle Williams type potential gem (similarly 6'1 303).
Love the write-up. I hadn't really gotten into the DT class until like two days ago with Jordan Hill, so now I've read this and can pretend like I know what I'm talking about. Your rankings pretty much match up with how I feel/ what I've looked metrics wise. (Although Jesse Williams is on my list of statistically overrated players...) Sylvester Williams was a beast rushing the passer last year with an SPP of 10.7, so I love that you have him there at 3rd with everything you've seen as well. All in all, great stuff.
I still think there's an outside chance, that if we move up from 12 it will be to get Star and not an OT. Or maybe that's me being stupid.
Thanks for putting this out - and great write up. I watched Richardson in a number of the youtube vids. Really was surprised after doing so at how many have him rated so high.
I tell you what. Darrington Sentimore is really growing on me. Nice recruit to Alabama. Didn't really like it there, hated Nick Saban because of the way he would treat his players. Didn't make grades very well and had to go out to junior college. Came back to Tennessee from JUCO, made an impact. A lot like Cordarrelle Patterson's story line. But just look at what this guy did when he got a chance to go up against Alabama: [video=youtube;U0xwvPAzI78]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0xwvPAzI78[/video] This guy gave CYRUS KOUANDJIO a hard time. Nobody gives Cyrus Kouandjio a hard time! And Sentimore is a 6'2" and 290 lbs defensive tackle that was out playing pass rushing defensive end, and he's out there giving Cyrus ****ing Kouandjio and D.J. Fluker all they can handle. You kidding me? I know he had extra special motivation for this game, in his own words "I want to beat Nick Saban. Bad"....but still! Can you see why I compare him to like a smaller version of Randy Starks? That's what he is to me.
