Joe Thuney as a player reminds me a lot of Evan Mathis. They measured and tested virtually the same in a Combine setting. Thuney was another guy you thought based on size had no business being out at left tackle but he was out there and he did well.
The second game of the season, which was the second game Thuney had played at college left tackle, he has to face probably the best pure pass rusher in the draft in Noah Spence. You could see how mechanical Thuney was in his kick step and footwork, focusing more on getting his feet exactly the way you coach it rather than being an athlete and stopping this uber athletic dynamo from getting to the passer. He didn't stand a chance. Spence schooled him a few times, but what I liked about Thuney was, and this was consistent across his tapes, you show him one thing and you're probably not going to beat him the same way again. Sure enough after only perhaps two or three embarrassing snaps against Spence to start the game, Thuney had Noah well in hand for maybe three-quarters of the game. They sent some help his direction at times but it wasn't really necessary.
Similarly you could watch the battle between Thuney and Shaq Lawson, and this time I think it was Lawson who was unprepared to be challenged by this no-name guard who just moved to left tackle this year. Some of those initial snaps of Lawson's were among the most uncreative I've seen in terms of finding a way to beat the tackle and get to the quarterback. I like that Shaq Lawson adjusted though. He got Thuney with a similar move to what he pulled on Ronnie Stanley, and this is one of the reasons I like Lawson because he clearly understands angles and how to use not just his hands but his feet to create opportunities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbLv4V0fo0o&feature=youtu.be&t=299
You watch him at 0.25x speed and what he does is pull kind of a Bruce Smith move, get his shoulder perpendicular while actually arcing slightly outward instead of just going vertical or cutting the corner too sharply. This draws Thuney into getting his own shoulders perpendicular and lunging outward at Lawson, who just created spacing that Thuney wasn't expecting. When Lawson did this to Ronnie Stanley, I believe Shaq used his hands to pull Ronnie's jersey downward and then he went inside of him. In this case he goes outside of the lunging Thuney. But really once you've got the tackle stepping out to you with his shoulders perpedicular, you can go inside or outside of him, doesn't matter all that much.
A few snaps later, Shaq Lawson pulled another move on Thuney that he had busted out on Ronnie Stanley to great success, the inside spin move. Lucky for Joe the back was there to pick Lawson up.
https://youtu.be/dbLv4V0fo0o?t=368
But here's the thing...after Lawson fired those two bullets in response to Thuney giving him a lot more of a challenge than he'd expected...Thuney adjusted and locked Shaq Lawson down completely for the remainder of the game. I've seen all of Shaq Lawson's games from 2015 and this game on the balance of things was the worst of them. He played better against Alabama and Cam Robinson, and that was with a sprained MCL keeping him at 50% by his own estimation.
When you watch tape after tape of Thuney, this is what you see. You see a smart player that adjusts. He adjusts to the outside speed of a Noah Spence, adjusts to the savvy and power of a Shaq Lawson, never even had a lick of trouble on the occasions he faced Devonte Fields, didn't really have any trouble with Florida State's pass rushers. Dadi Nicholas never played on Thuney's side but Thuney certainly didn't have any trouble against Virginia Tech. Aside from one play where Joe got thrown to the ground while trying to pull, he generally got the best of Sheldon Rankins as a guard in 2014. You see a player with an uncommonly strong back doing things from an anchor standpoint that you don't think he should be able to do, particularly after getting the blow delivered to him on some plays. You see a player with really good hands, not quite an iron grip like Dahl's but more active with punches, quicker to reload and get leverage, particularly good at getting players' shoulders turned and finding ways to hold them without doing something you're going to get called for. You see a player with tight end athleticism and uncommon lateral range.
Like Dahl the question you're left with is whether the most impressive you're ever going to see this player be is at left tackle where they play surprisingly well despite having no right to look that good based on their height. Thuney has a 79 inch wingspan which is not dissimilar from some other tackles you see that have rate high like Joe Thomas or Jake Matthews. Dahl's wingspan is about 80 inches. Like Dahl you wonder if the guy can anchor in the middle at only about 300-305 lbs, faced up on big, strong and explosive players. Dahl had some issues with Jarran Reed delivering the blow at the Senior Bowl, and Thuney initially allowed guys like Alex Balducci and David Dean to deliver the blow at the Shrine game before Thuney adjusted and handled business against them really well, but what happens when those are 330 lbs guys instead of 290 lbs guys?
This is why we're discussing them as gems instead of discussing them as options for pick #42, for example. But it's well to remember it took Evan Mathis like 5 or 6 years bouncing around the NFL before every clicked, and it took Mark Dixon a number of years up in the CFL before he was NFL ready. So I think if you be a little patient with guys like Thuney and Dahl you could have something very good in the end.
Connor McGovern is another prospect like this, by the way.
