Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones Watching DaQuan Jones, I wondered, is he
more than just a big guy on the defensive line? If he was, Tennessee Titans Daquan
Jones how would I tell? Scouting college players is all about projection of
player traits to the next level. I’m comfortable with uncertainty in this
process; that’s what my post on Bishop Sankey a couple days ago was
all about. Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones With Sankey, though, I had my ideas of
what I was seeing, and could reasonably specify what issues separated Sankey
the fifth-round runner I thought I saw from Sankey the second-round prospect
the Titans saw. Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones In my review of Jones, though, it
occurred to me that I couldn’t tell you with any detail or confidence why I
thought he was a second-round pick or why I thought he was a fifth-round pick. Tennessee
Titans Daquan Jones What I can tell is what I saw, and read, and heard.
My post when the Titans drafted him was brief, for the simple reason
that I had hardly noticed his presence-he wasn’t a reported visitor, wasn’t so
highly rated I watched him for general knowledge, hadn’t caught my eye for any
other reason, and played on a Penn State football team I hadn’t found
interesting enough to watch enough to develop an opinion on any of their defensive
linemen. Thus, an initial impression of he’s big (nearly 6’4, 322 pounds). Tennessee
Titans Daquan Jones After reviewing those five games, that was a pretty good
initial impression. Jones’ defining NFL trait seems likely to be his size. Of
course, even among defensive linemen there are gradients of size and bigness.
Jones is not “just” a big body to stick in the middle of the line-John Jenkins
of Georgia, who went to the Saints in the third round in 2013, or ex-Vol Daniel
McCullers, who went to the Steelers in the sixth round this year, are of a
different stripe. Jones is more conventionally (by NFL standards) big and
correspondingly more mobile. His game, though, struck me as a pretty direct
one. He uses that bulk and strength to stand his ground and go forward. It’s a
game that worked well at times (Syracuse’s
guards will be glad they won’t see him again), less well at others (quiet
performance against Ohio
State). The first
question is, how much more is he than that? His high school coach, Bill Spalik,
in a radio interview noted he had good lateral speed for a player of his size.
That showed up at some times, but on the whole I didn’t think he was more than
just a line of scrimmage player. As Spalik noted, he’s not going to run many
plays down from the backside, or even necessarily in the backfield as he’s
shooting a backside gap. New defensive coordinator Ray Horton praised the
Titans defense he inherited for having big guys that run; that’s definitely an
aspect of Jones’ games that will have to be more energetic in the NFL, as he
wasn’t an aggressive downfield pursuit player in the games I watched (to be
fair, (a) neither was J.J. Watt in 2012 and (b) given Horton’s apparent
rotational philosophy, Jones won’t be playing as many snaps and won’t have to
conserve energy that way). He has a couple pass rush moves, but not many of
them, and didn’t seem like a hard player to prepare for technically (this is
true of almost all college defensive linemen). What else? One thing that I’m
sure attracted the Titans is he has experience lining up all over the place. He
played a lot of 3-tech his senior season, but also spent time at 1-tech, as
well as at 5-tech in PSU’s 3-man units. Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones As a
reminder, that’s experience at the three alignments of a Ray Horton
defensive line. He’s overcome some familial adversity that seems to
deeply motivate him (common for NFL players, and a subject significantly larger
than my blogging here, let alone just this post). Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones
A lot of the scouting reports I read had him as a likely Day 2 pick, Tennessee Titans
Daquan Jones and Spalik indicated there was some expectation he’d go on Day 2;
I didn’t come up with a great explanation for why, Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones
aside from (a) he’s primarily a run-stopper, not a pass-rusher, and (b) week to
week consistency may not have been great. Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones I
wondered while watching him if he might be a AAAA player like Karl Klug, but
that was not a concern others had. In terms of his on-the-field impact, Tennessee
Titans Daquan Jones my thought while watching him was the natural comparison
would be to Antonio Johnson and that his experience playing every line spot
would make him a useful reserve who plays a modest amount at each spot-maybe
Ahtyba Rubin last year (whom I noted played both DE and NT), Tennessee Titans Daquan
Jones but playing more like 25% of the snaps than Rubin’s team-leading 54%. I
still need to spend more time thinking about just how Horton might rotate his
DL, though, but that seems like it might be a decent approximation Tennessee Titans Daquan Jones.
