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#9 Cameron McGrone (Michigan)
(6’ 1”, 235 pounds; RS SO)
Just outside the top 100 overall recruits, Cameron McGrone only saw action in one game in his first year in Ann Arbor and started his redshirt freshman season as a backup.
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He then took over as a starter after just one game, recording 65 tackles, nine of them for loss and 2.5 sacks. Last season, he didn’t have enough time to put together impressive stats, as Michigan had a five-game season, but he still impressed scouts with what he did in the middle of his team's defense.
I said this already coming into the 2020 NFL season – McGrone has all the athletic tools to be a star linebacker. He rarely takes missteps, shows great bursts out of his stance and can slip through tight creases almost like a running back, while being able to twist his body to get hands-on the ball-carrier.
McGrone rarely allows blockers to work across his face and get their bodies in front of him. While he doesn’t look big enough to deal with fullbacks and guards climbing up on him, he somehow doesn’t get blown backwards and often times through the play-side shoulder of the blocker to get through a gap and is able to work through and slip off contact routinely.
Yet, he also has the speed to back-door or go underneath blockers trying to pin him inside, and you routinely see him scrape over the top from the backside, where he can flat out run people down on jet sweeps and other outside stuff.
However, what makes him unique as a run-defender – and it’s not that easy to describe – is his ability to seemingly stop his momentum, like shooting through a gap, so the blocker can’t put hands on him. McGrone is then able to drag down the running back as he makes his cutback. He adds that extra bit of chippiness, routinely, giving a little shove to the ball-carrier when he gets up.
McGrone’s speed as a blitzer really stands out, especially when the O-line can’t decipher quickly enough to pick him up in protection because his closing speed is pretty crazy. And once again, he’s not very big, but when he blows into those guys, he can create some vertical movement, and he has the suddenness to make the back whiff when he oversets to one side.
In Don Brown’s blitz-happy defense, McGrone provided pressure from many different angles, oftentimes looping around the edge, where he displayed a natural ability to corner and flatten the quarterback.
In coverage, his speed to fly around the whole field is pretty apparent. He can cover a lot of ground after stepping up initially against play-action fakes. and you see him cover tight-ends down the seam with pretty good success.
McGrone was much more of a forward player because that’s what linebackers do in that Big Blue scheme, but in terms of quickness, speed and fluidity in the lower body, I don’t see why he can't develop into a player who can sink deep in zone and cover option routes one-on-one. While it is a limited sample-size, McGrone didn’t miss any of his 26 tackling attempts last season, which tells you about his ability to bring down the ball-carrier in the open field.
On the flip side, the young man still gets his eyes lost at times, reading run schemes, oftentimes not finding the ball-carrier because he doesn’t seem to be able to look over or through the offensive line. And it takes him a while to find the ball, which ends with him following the tailback on a jet sweep or toss fake as the offense runs a fullback dive, for example.
I would like to see him show some better backside discipline on zone runs, as he is prone to overrun his fits at times, in general. At this point, he plays a lot on feel rather than reading his keys. In coverage, he certainly has the mobility to cover a lot of ground, but he still doesn’t show much of a plan or process yet in terms of working through progressions and identifying route patterns.
Nevertheless, let’s not forget McGrone is still only 20 years old. Whether he's able to add to his frame, learn how to work through his keys in the run game, with extension work in the film room or just the reps he can get in practice, there is a lot of room for growth.
He can be an impact player in the NFL if deployed as a blitzer or matchup piece in man-coverage. If he improves in his deficient areas, the sky is the limit for this kid, depending on the future coach he may work with.
