2021 NFL Draft: Top 10 edge rushers 

Honorable Mentions:

# 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Quincy Roche (Miami)

6’ 4”, 245 pounds; RS SR

A former three-star recruit, Roche spent his first three years at Temple, where he was an impact player right away and was named the AAC Defensive Player of the Year, thanks to recording 19 tackles for loss, 13 sacks and five passes batted down. He then decided to transfer to Miami, where he couldn’t replicate those sack numbers (4.5), but was still a disruptive player, with 14.5 TFLs, two fumbles forced and three more recovered.

Roche was one of the most productive players in terms of pressures and negative plays in college football at Temple, where he really flashed to me in the Owls’ win over Tulane.

Last season in Miami, he played as kind of a hybrid linebacker, with a lot of two-point stances and quite a bit of spot zone drops. While Roche isn’t necessarily a physical edge-setter, he is a TFL specialist in the run game, chasing ball-carriers down from behind as the unblocked edge defender routinely.

He can also create some disruption slanting into the B-gap, where he is slippery and can bend off either foot, to wide again and not allow ball-carriers to bounce out wide. You see him crash through the inside shoulder of H-backs and wings trying to seal him on the backside on plenty of occasions. Roche has experience rushing from a two-point stance and with his hand in the dirt.

Roche stresses tackles immediately because of his great jump off the snap, plus then he can shorten the corner with maybe the best bend in this entire class, to go along with ripping underneath the offensive tackle. When he perfectly times up his hand-swipes as the blocker tries to shoot his hands, with the way he can pivot off that inside foot and aim back at the quarterback, that guy won’t be able to still get hands on Roche.

When tackles oversets to the outside with him, he will take that inside lane, with smooth lateral movement and double-hand swipes, plus he can create problems for the tackle by giving a hard jab to the inside and then going around with a hand combat and the ability to flatten to the QB.

Overall, Roche keeps blockers at distance and his pads clear. He is one of the best prospects in terms of reading and taking advantage of the pass-sets tackles show him. And he’s also dangerous on T-E twists, where he gets through tight, to not waste any steps or time.

The former Hurricane came to the Senior Bowl 10 pounds heavier than expected, yet without losing any of the explosiveness or twitch we are used from him, to win the majority of his one-on-ones, and he competed hard in the team run drills.

With that being said, Roche attacks too far upfield on the frontside of zone runs and leaves the B-gap wide open in the process. He could still do a better job of keeping that outside arm free overall and he has to win with speed and quickness, because he just doesn’t pack a lot of power and can’t really convert on the fly, even if tackles give him really soft set.

He has to become more pro-active with his counter moves if he doesn’t have the angle to get around the corner. He also doesn’t show a lot of awareness for screen passes. Roche will be 23 at the moment he is drafted and I’m not sure how much more he can still add to his frame.

It’s always hard to project these edge rushers, that rely so heavily on burst and bend, without much of a power element to their game. Depending on how much he can still grow physically, I think Roche could certainly be a three-down player in a 3-4 front, but early on he will likely be best served as a designated pass-rusher, where he could be pretty productive early on, while he develops a year.

# 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Shaka Toney (Penn State)

6’ 2”, 240 pounds; RS SR

Shaka Toney’s playing time and role increased all four years with the Nittany Lions, collecting 20 sacks, 28.5 tackles for loss and four fumbles forced through his career, with at least five sacks and seven TFLs in all three seasons as a starter, earning second- and first-team All-Big Ten honors respectively these last two.

Toney is much more stout as an edge-setter than you would think at his weight, really leaning into blocks and not allowing opponent to build up momentum to drive him off the ball. To illustrate that – he stood his ground in the run game against Minnesota’s 400-pound right tackle Daniel Faalele.

Shaka Toney plays with pads parallel to the line of scrimmage against the run and routinely gets off blocks late, to put hands on the ball-carrier, or he can get around linemen with quickness.

From the backside, he does a good job of closing the distance to the last man on zone runs and works upfield, when he sees the quarterback pull the ball on bootlegs, quickly forcing them to throw it away. As a pass-rusher, he forces tackles to get out of their stance instantly with his get-off and has the speed to be a threat around the edge, which he combines with a nice chop-rip move, plus he has to have ankles of steel to turn such tight corners.

Off that, he can work the long-arm effectively when tackles set him too softly, in order to drive them backwards, and when he sees the inside path open up, he will take it. I love the way he utilizes the dip and rip, where he can get really low to the ground, when tackles stop their kick-slide (check out strip-sack vs. Nebraska last season), or hit the up-and-under, when he sees the OT shift his weight to the outside foot.

Penn State used Toney to slant and loop inside a lot as part of twists and different games run up front. Down in Mobile, Toney showed some ability to convert speed to power, which is a big question for him at 238 pounds, and while he was never actually asked to do it at Penn State, Toney actually looked comfortable carrying tight-ends vertically in coverage drills.

However, he does work too far upfield on quite a few occasions, which leads to widening the B-gap on zone runs and forces him to re-direct as a pass-rusher. Toney gets caught with his back to the quarterback on a still ineffective spin move at times and you see him overshoot the arc multiple times per game as well.

There is not a lot of power to his pass-rush approach and if he is matched up with an athletic tackle, who can match his speed/quickness around the edge, he will have a tough time still comprising the pocket.

When he is asked to drop out or finds himself in other open-field tackling situations, he doesn’t seem very comfortable and you see him slip off too many tackles altogether. With his frame and lack of power, he may be looked at as no fit for even fronts or a pure pass-rusher by some teams.

To start his career, Toney may be looked as more of a designated pass-rusher, but I think he can be a weapon along the front for some team, that can utilize him creatively on passing downs. He can threaten around the corner or use his flexibility to get to the quarterback from different angles, if you give him a lane as the secondary man on twists or loop him across multiple gaps. And he absolutely competes in the run game, where his ability to set the edge is underrated in my opinion.

# 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Payton Turner (Houston)

6’ 5”, 270 pounds; SR

Once just a two-star recruit, if not for the proximity to the Houston program, Turner might have not received any scholarship offers due to a knee injury his senior year of high school. After being a backup as a freshman, he started almost every game the following two seasons and then got hurt four games into 2020, when he was playing the best ball of his career. Over the 16 games these last two seasons, he recorded 18 tackles for loss and 8.5 sacks combined.

Turner is somebody, who you just can’t leave unblocked in the run game. He shows great pursuit from the backside and chases a lot of ball-carriers down as they are strung out wide. He can rip through the insider shoulder when blockers try to scoop him up, but then also man-handles tight-ends at the point of attack.

On the frontside of zone runs, he attacks upfield, but then is quick enough to go underneath the block as the running back tries to get through the B-gap. Turner’s great ankle flexibility and speed allow him to get around kick-out blocks, before the run play can develop and then wrap up the ball-carrier in the backfield. He also shows good change of direction to react to jet sweeps or redirect against screen passes, with the speed to turn and chase.

Because of his thick frame, he has inside flexibility on sub-sets without making the defense vulnerable in the run game, already having plenty of success as a three-technique penetrator, to create chaos in the middle. The length and suddenness are what can create problems in the pass-game with Turner, with experience rushing from two- and three-point stances.

He has wiggle to give offensive tackles a little nod to the inside and combine that with a club-swim to get around the edge, or a straight rip move, with the tremendous ankle flexibility to corner off that inside foot. Turner has some violence in his hands and can clear the blocker’s reach with those strong swipes.

Yet, he can also drop the inside shoulder quickly and give the blocker very little area to attack. That sudden ability also makes him pretty dangerous on up-and-under maneuvers, with which he badly beat BYU’s left tackle Brady Christensen last season. He had a pretty good game that day, but he absolutely dominated Tulane and to be honest, his superior talent was apparent in most of the AAC action.

On the flipside, Turner needs to do a better job of establishing that half-man relationship overall and especially in the run game, where he may be straight up on a blocker and has the ball-carrier go right through his gap, but he at best can drag that guy down from behind, which allows extra yardage.

In the pass game, he allows O-linemen to stab inside his chest and make those hand-swipes much less effective, which makes quick-sets highly successful against him. Turner also needs to work on converting speed to power more effectively and at this point he lacks reliable counter maneuvers.

I was pretty discouraged by what I saw during Senior Bowl week, where he showed almost no plan in pass-rush one-on-ones and was mostly made useless. So that jump in level of competition could be a major problem for him, when he can’t get by with pure talent.

With an 84" wingspan, a well-filled frame, quickness and power to him, Turner presents a desirable athletic profile. He is still pretty raw as a pass-rusher, but certainly has the tools and has had his flashes of dominance in the AAC.

The pressure numbers have been pretty consistent these last one-and-a-half years, providing one on 14.4 percent of his pass-rushing snaps. But he cashed in half an extra sack on about a third of the opportunities this past one compared to 2019. He is learning to turn this into production and still has a lot of room to grow as somebody with versatility from B-gap to a 7-technique.

The next names up:

Hamilcar Rashed Jr. (Oregon State), Victor Dimukeje & Chris Rumph II (Duke), Patrick Johnson (Tulane), Patrick Jones II & Rashad Weaver (Pittsburgh) & Elerson Smith (Northern Iowa)

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