There's a reason Manny Lawson was voted by his own teammates and coaches as the team MVP, not Mario Williams. He's a hard worker, he's smart, and honestly his workouts and tangibles make Mike Mamula look like Elvis Dumervil, IMO.
He doesn't take over games, but he's ALWAYS there. He's always in the QBs ear hole. Its like clockwork, he never disappears from games. I mean the guy had 10.5 sacks, 20 TFLs, 14 quarterback hurries, 4 passes defensed...he's blocked 9 kicks in his career at NC State.
Here's a fun fact. You know he's returned 5 punts for an average of 13 yards per return? Serious. He returned one for 7 yards in 2005, then for 15 yards in 2003, and 13, 13, and 17 yards in 2002.
I know I know, returns have nothing to do with being a defensive end. I just think that I've not seen a guy who plays so much like JT as this guy. His long arms (35.75" reach, same as D'Brickashaw Ferguson) keep his body away from the offensive tackle tryng to block him. He plays with good power (ask Marcus McNeil, who got bull rushed by Manny right into the QB at the Senior Bowl). And nobody can reproduce that speed rush around the edge. I've heard his spin move called pedestrian but when you're that fast, none of your moves are pedestrian. He's got Jason Taylor's spin move, not Dwight Freeney's whirling dervish.
I think the guy is going to be special wherever you play him because he's a smart player (scored a 28 on the wonderlic), he is a hard worker and a leader (see the Team MVP vote done by his own teammates and coaches), he's a physical freak in terms of speed and his ability to move, and at least in terms of hitting the weights, he's actually pretty strong...not overly strong, but plenty strong enough.
On that last note, Anthony Alabi has long arms like Manny except longer (36.75 inches) and he struggled on the 225 bench...only did 18 reps. But, he can reportedly max over 500 pounds. Why the disparity? Well, the long arms really sap your endurance on the bench, but not necessarily your maximum lift. Manny did 23 reps. Not fantastic, but certainly not bad, and actually quite good when you consider his 36 inch arms. Other guys in the draft with arms as long as many did around 27-28 reps, but they all outweighed Manny by near-100 pounds.
And what is remarkable to me is that he plays with power. He bull rushed the 340 pound McNeil right into the QB for a sack. He is easily able to use his upper body strength and long arms to keep the tackle off his body in the ground game, and this allows him to redirect after the ball carrier really well.
When you break down tape of Jason Taylor, you don't see some flashy spin move like Dwight Freeney. You don't see the bull rushing of Trace Armstrong. You don't see the club move of Reggie White or the rip move of Michael Strahan. You just see a guy who is tall, upright, extremely fast around the edge, strong enough to hold his arms out at the point of attack, has an endless motor, and otherwise just plain more athletic than everyone he faces. This is why he's able to string together any number of moves he wants even if he's not the expert in those maneuvers. He's always there. I don't know that you see a bunch of games where JT just takes over the whole thing (although he seems to consistently do so against the Broncos, strangely enough). He'll have his hat trick game every year, but otherwise he's just steady, always putting pressure on...never completely disappearing.
