Originally posted by charger1993
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Wilkins needs to improve his technique and learn to use his hands. He needs to stop waiting for plays to develop and he needs to initiate the plays himself. Fire off low, have his hands hitting and getting under the OL pads as his feet drive into the 2nd step, and then shed the block and make the play. He and Vea (and tons of other college DL) usually just stand up, let the OL block, then throw the block off, and chase the play down from behind. That is fine in college, but everyone is going to be that big, quick and fast in the NFL, so those skills don't translate to the NFL.
Teams were scared about drafting Aaron Donald, and didn't because he was small. It didn't matter. When I look at guys like him, forget the college production, that doesn't matter. Watch him play, and is he the style of player that projects well in the NFL? To me, his leverage, technique and take off make him exactly the style of player who will have some success, because he is already doing the things he needs to do. The leverage is the big selling point to me. He jacks up much bigger, and more powerful players all the time. Sure they are all sloppy compared to NFL guys, but Hurst is playing so low, NFL guys aren't going to get under his pads.
The one thing smaller NFL DL have to do if they are going to play inside most of the time, is they need to be rotated. If we drafted Hurst, we would need to have him split time with Phillon. small guys just seem to wear down a lot, which is understandable, since they give up 50+ lbs to the OL.
Ideally, you want your best players on the DL to play 2/3 to 3/4 of the time, maybe a little more, or they wear down. Ingram and Bosa's production dropped big time, and while I think there are a lot of issues there, one of them is that they simply played too many snaps early on. Think of it like doing gassers after practice. The first ones, your legs are sorta fresh and you can run hard and fast. But as the muscles tire they lose the explosion. You may be running all out after that, but your 100% after your legs turn to rubber is not nearly as fast as the 100% was the first couple. Sure, they can still be out on the field and function, but you aren't going to explode off the line and get past the OL. The OL gets tired, but he doesn't have to beat the DL off the snap, he is just looking to break even on pass blocking.
The other thing we need to do is stop playing our best DL on as many early downs. Someone like Issac Rochelle or Tenny Palepoi would be a better run down guy than Bosa and Ingram. No, they are not better players, but 1st downs are typically short, quick passes or runs. Hard for pass rushers to make much of an impact on those downs. If it is a run, Rochelle and Palepoi can defended that almost as well as Bosa/Ingram can. And on a quick pass, neither of them is going to do much if the QB is getting the ball out on time. But Rochelle and Palepoi are not guys you can sub in on 2nd and long and 3rd down and long and think they can rush the passer. That is where Bosa and Ingram have the biggest impact. They can play some early downs, but set the rotation to make sure they are on the field the downs that help the most. Davis can help on some of the later down rotation, but we need to be able to use him as a 3rd/4th rusher on long yardage passing downs. He can get the rest of his snaps rotating between the Leo and strong De on other downs.
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