We can use production in college to help project NFL success. Anyone can list statistically successful college players who failed in the NFL, but careful evaluation of college box scores can be more useful than many think.
We’ve been doing speculative work with offensive linemen, but we’ve also taken more rigorous, historically successful approaches with off-ball linebackers and edge defenders (you can look at those projected to play in a 4-3 system here and those in a 3-4 system here).
Now, we’re looking at interior defensive linemen—commonly defensive tackles, but also two-gapping 3-4 defensive ends. It’s important to understand that there are essentially two roles to distinguish between for evaluating college production: anchors and penetrators.
Players who anchored as nose tackles in college won’t necessarily play that role in the NFL but they also don’t get the opportunity that penetrators (any interior linemen lined up over offensive tackles or the gap between the offensive guard and offensive tackle) do—essentially creating two sets of production statistics between the two.
So we’ll look first at players who were asked to take on double teams in college, then look at players who were asked to be bigger playmakers.
As with defensive ends, we’re looking at pure sack and tackle-for-loss production, but we’re also looking at market share of solo tackles like we did at linebacker. Playing up the middle is different than the alley, so the ability to create tackles at all, not even just for loss, will be important for these players in a way that is less important for edge players.
Let’s look at nose tackles first.
A bright, cherry red rating of 73.4 sticks out for Dalvin Tomlinson of Alabama. Much of that has to do with his Age, the oldest among the defensive tackles by a full year. Even so, he was just average-at-best at creating sacks and TFLs and only gains ground with solo tackle market share. It’s not nearly enough ground, either—especially because much of it comes from teammate adjustments from Jonathan Allen and Reuben Foster.
The only other nose tackle here with a concerning grade is Jarron Jones from Notre Dame. His age isn’t a concern, he simply couldn’t get much done despite playing next to Isaac Rochell. This takes into account peak production, not final-year production, so he also had opportunities to play with Jaylon Smith and Sheldon Day. Despite that, he couldn’t create for himself or generate enough of an impact to earn a positive score—with concerning grades in sack production, tackles-for-loss creation or in market share of solo tackles.
On the other side of that is Davon Godchaux from LSU, who I expected to score highly in this statistic, though not this highly. He’s a player with significant off-field problems so his talent was always going to be better than his draft position, but this level of production is significant for a nose tackle. Part of that has to do with the unusual strategy LSU deployed to put Godchaux on the field, but it is still worth noting. If he was evaluated as a penetrating defensive tackle, his score would be 100.4.
The only other player who doesn’t have an average score is Montravius Adams from Auburn. I didn’t particularly like his play at the Senior Bowl (see my review of the Senior Bowl players here) and he’s below average in producing sacks and tackles-for-loss, but not by much. He did produce pressure (though didn’t finish) and gets a bigger boost from age than anything else.
Other than that are four players with average scores. Notably, Clemson’s Carlos Watkins has better raw production than any other nose tackle but, projected to finish his rookie year at 24 years old, has a higher bar to clear. He does fall slightly behind in pressure rate but generally outproduces the field at nose tackle.
Washington’s Elijah Qualls will be a fascinating evaluation given the sheer amount of draftable talent surrounding him on the field. In this draft, that will include Sidney Jones, Kevin King, Joe Mathis and Budda Baker; and in future years that will include Greg Gaines and Vita Vea. Linebackers Keishawn Bierria and Azeem Victor are also talented pass-rushers.
All of that is to say that the talent around Qualls might be so overwhelming (and perhaps for Dalvin Tomlinson) that raw statistical totals like TFLs and sacks may not accurately account for their play—positively or negatively.
As it is, Qualls produced sacks and pressures well, but had some issues making tackles-for-loss. With a slight bonus due to age (nose tackles tend to be older), Qualls ends up with an average overall score.
That leaves Vincent Taylor from Oklahoma State and Ryan Glasgow from Michigan. Both produce excellent pressure and sack rates for the position, though Glasgow had an edge in pressure production while Taylor finished much more often. Taylor’s advantage in creating tackles-for-loss is countered by Glasgow’s edge in overall tackle production so the two balance out quite a bit, especially as they are the same age. Given their similar grades, what may really separate them are their athletic testing scores at the combine.
Let’s take a look at penetrators, generally called “three-technique” tackles, though also play as defensive ends in 3-4 sets.
Ye Gods, Jonathan Allen.
It’s no secret that Jonathan Allen is good, but he might be a tier better than Solomon Thomas despite very similar film grades and could end up being more valuable than consensus number one player Myles Garrett—if one takes stock in these production profiles.
Allen has an advantage against his peers in every category—sacks, pressure rate, tackles-for-loss, market share of solo tackles and age. He’s producing sacks like an edge defender and TFLs like a linebacker. Impressive.
Tanzel Smart from Tulane isn’t bad either. He showed movement skill in Mobile, so he may be able to put together some good test scores at the combine. His sack and pressure production is average, but his ability to create tackles-for-loss was better than any other defensive tackle in the set by a huge degree—if the ratings were built on TFLs alone, he’d score 131.2. The only thing really holding him back is his low overall solo tackle share, but his production is a big positive for him going forward.
On the other end of the spectrum is Chris Wormley. There are a few reasons to be skeptical of the certainty of Wormley’s production profile; the first is that he was an edge player at Michigan asked to hold his gaps instead of getting deep into the backfield. Unlike with nose tackles, playing at the edge in that scenario makes it difficult to generate tackles.
The second reason is his supporting cast—which could be a positive or a negative depending on the statistic in question. Like with Alabama and Washington prospects, one must be at least somewhat careful with defensive production for players from Michigan; aside from Wormley, they’ll be putting Jabrill Peppers, Taco Charlton, Ryan Glasgow, Ben Gedeon, Jourdan Lewis and Channing Stribling into the NFL.
Whew.
His pressure rate, as befits a defensive end, is better than any of the defensive tackles. He also generates a good deal of solo tackles (or absorbs some from teammate corrections) and really only suffers in raw tackle-for-loss production. The biggest issue for Wormley is his age and the fact that his good production is not nearly good enough to overcome the fact that he’s the oldest “three-technique” interior lineman.
Small-school Larry Ogunjobi from UNC-Charlotte should have benefited more in his raw totals from playing a Group of 5 schedule. While he does generate a good deal of stops behind the line of scrimmage, his sack and pressure production is lacking at best. He does have an appropriate market share of solo tackles and doesn’t have age concerns, but without the ability to push the pocket, he’ll have a limited role in the NFL.
He might be in a somewhat similar situation as Davon Godchaux, where he played nose for Charlotte, but the fact that he was single-blocked often, carries a penetrator’s weight and will project to that role means he probably will need to show a little bit more than he has given his level of competition.
His score does change as a nose tackle, however, and he rates at 108.9 in that context.
There’s only one other disappointing score among the penetrating tackles, and it’s a defensive tackle that at one point was supposed to be the top DT in the class. He still may be, depending on how one categorizes Solomon Thomas and potentially Jonathan Allen—Caleb Brantley from Florida.
Brantley happens to be a little bit below average at everything and makes up some ground with his age. His pressure and sack rate are below his peers and he couldn’t produce in the run game to make up for it. He also can grab some credit for his solo tackle market share, but it’s not enough to take him out of cautionary flag territory.
After that are Solomon Thomas from Stanford, Malik McDowell from Michigan State and Jaleel Johnson from Iowa. McDowell’s scores are almost entirely built off of his best-in-class age (by a significant degree) as his production scores fall behind his peers, especially in his ability to produce sacks. That’s the whole point of age-curving, so I wouldn’t add a mental dock to his score or anything.
Thomas, on the other hand, seems to be average at everything—an above average sack rate, but average tackle-for-loss production, average pressure rate, unremarkable solo tackle market share and par-for-the-course age.
Jaleel Johnson is a player that I think is underrated by CBS (where these player rankings come from) but might need a boost from the combine. His passing game numbers—sacks and pressure—score well against his peers, but his run game numbers—tackles-for-loss and solo tackle market share—fall below them by just as much.
I expect his film grade to improve regardless, but there’s good evidence that Johnson might not be as undervalued as I thought.
As we get closer to the combine, knowing what to look for will be vital to interpreting the events. That doesn’t just mean being familiar with which events matter, but also who might gain or lose the most from a good performance.
For example, I think it’s unlikely that Chris Wormley can salvage his analytic résumé with a good performance, but Caleb Brantley has every ability to. Dalvin Tomlinson’s age creates a ceiling that he won’t be able to overcome in Indianapolis, but Vincent Taylor or Ryan Glasgow could really distinguish themselves with solid performances.
As tempting as it is to throw some of these out the window if we feel strongly enough, there’s a strong track record of using these tools to modify our initial film grades and it might allow us to separate similarly graded players.
Next time, we’ll take on defensive backs.
