CK. Went through your Twitter timeline....
What is your grade on the pick?
Can he line up opposite Wake every down?
how do you see him performing in the NFL?
Talk to me...
To be exact, he was my 9th best player in the draft. Would I have personally traded up from 12 to 3 to get him? No. Does that mean I don't like him? Not at all. I've been talking this guy up for about a year, since June of 2012 when someone turned me onto him. NFL evaluators have been talking him up for about that same length of time, some of them even voting for HIM over the likes of Ndamukong Suh, Jason Pierre-Paul, etc...as a guy that will be the best defensive player in the NFL in 5 years.
He's a catch.
Is he the best catch we could have made? Personally I don't think so. Did we end up giving up a valuable pick in pick #42 in order to make that catch? Yes we did.
The only thing I am worried about with him is whether he will be used correctly by the staff. I would LIKE to buy hook, line and sinker that the staff knows what they're doing in all cases with all players...they're professionals, they know way more football than I do, but that doesn't mean they've always been right when it comes to marrying the evaluation of a player with what we should do with him on the field.
When I watched Richard Marshall's work at Arizona and Carolina I saw a guy that was troublesome if you put him on the perimeter as a starting corner, but who actually may make a good safety. They stuck him at corner. He struggled, before he got hurt.
When I looked at Olivier Vernon I saw a multiple player with really surprising stout and strong hands for his size, a guy that moves well in space and is flexible, but a guy who really does not rush the passer off the edge very well at all. I thought it would be nice to use him as a multiple player on the edge in run situations, and I thought you could reduce him down and rush him over a guard in pass situations a la Pernell McPhee. You could do that because even though he's not a savvy pass rusher, his athleticism advantage over guards makes him dangerous. In response, guards will try and maximize their physicality advantage over him in order to cancel his athletic advantage. That would work if he wasn't so suprisingly stout at the point of attack with such strong hands. But I think the surprisingly good and strong hands helps nullify the guards' primary weapon against him, allowing him to maximize his advantage in athleticism against them. That's my running theory. Either way, watch a few games of him in college and you know he's weak coming off the edge as a pass rusher. What did the Dolphins do with him? They trained him on as a pass rush SPECIALIST from the wing. A specialist! Only later did they start to realize some of the things I would have guessed and they started focusing on taking advantage of the fact that he's a multiple type of player. But they never explored the inside rush possibility.
Finally there's Dimitri Patterson. For years I've watched this guy and tracked his metrics. It's pretty clear he's a good slot corner that consistently gets in trouble when asked to get out on the boundary. Miami claims him off waivers from Cleveland. What do they do? Well, he spent a total of 4 snaps in the slot, and 49 snaps on the perimeter. Before getting hurt. Oops.
You could also argue that they never quite used Sean Smith properly.
These guys are the professionals. They know a lot about what they're doing. I give them a TON of credit for taking guys that are in some key ways difficult to scheme properly like Cameron Wake and Koa Misi, and they found ways to make them flourish. But it doesn't stop them from being wrong every now and then.
What I worry about with a guy like Dion Jordan is he's not a straight forward player. He's a complicated player. He presents certain surprising skills, and certain surprising weaknesses. Figuring out the best way to make him a stellar force in the league is not going to be easy, though I think it is doable. So until I see the results, I'm going to be just a little bit nervous.
