Quote:
Originally Posted by Direckshun
Moving a DT to DE is actually more challenging than moving a guard to tackle.
There have been a fair number of guards that have played decent tackle over the course of NFL history. That's why a number of guards have done it over the years and virtually zero DTs have effectively done the move to DE.
I can't believe I'm typing this on a football message board to a group of men who follow football as a primary hobby, but 3-4 DE and 4-3 DE are completely different positions that require completely different skillsets.
Namely: 3-4 DEs primarily match up against guards. They're essentially tackles. Therefore they can afford to be big bodied bears because you're fighting in tighter spaces, which puts less of a premium on the bendy kind of speed-to-power mechanics that you need to challenge an NFL tackle's outside shoulder. Instead, you need to be able to win in the phone booth -- which Chris Jones is a Top 3 talent at doing.
To directly answer your question:
He is incredibly strong and incredibly quick for a guy his size with stupid long arms, but those talents could very well dwindle against NFL tackles who are bigger, longer, quicker, and stronger. Tackles are better football players than guards. You beat them by threatening their outside shoulder and then countering them into oblivion. Jones cannot threaten their outside shoulder -- he's never had the job of bending the edge or converting speed to power. And since tackles will simply not worry about their outside shoulder, they can convert their combat with Jones into a phone booth battle they're built to win. Jones will win some snaps, I'm sure, but the percentage will be so much lower on the edge against tackles than it will be along the interior against inferior guards who have no chance against him.
Jarran Reed helps some, but he is a different kind of passrusher. He can push the pocket and eventually swallow up plays if his teammates do their jobs well. He's also stupendous against the run. But Jones can end plays in the first 2.5 seconds with a great rush.
I'm of the opinion that when you have a guy on your team who is the best in the league at a really important position, you don't move him to another position.
But that seems to be what we're doing, at least part time.
Time will tell, I suppose.
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You're kind of making a mountain out of a molehill with this transition. No, there aren't many interior guys in the NFL who can bounce out to DE in a 4-3 and have success. Jones is one of the few with the explosion and quickness to play the position while letting his size be an advantage. I know what the **** a 3-4 DE does, dude. Jones was a 1-gap 5-technique guy, so he saw plenty of matchups (not to mention double teams FFS) involving the OT when he played in a 3-4. Again, the textbook says this is how these positions go, but this is the modern NFL, where unreal humans like Chris Jones exist. It's a bit of a roll of the dice, but we have an entire regular season to figure out whether it will work, need more time to gel, or just get scrapped and go back to keeping Jones on the inside and rotating guys through those spots. But they're clearly keen on rolling the dice in the name of getting more of those fantastic DTs of ours on the field, and I applaud this move.
Until one of the young guys like Danna turns into a solid starting DE where it becomes a hindrance to take him off the field, we should absolutely be exploring these kinds of alignments. If it works, it has potential to really be a nightmare for OCs.