Aidan Hutchinson profile: Why the Detroit Lions drafted the EDGE in the 2022 NFL Draft

With the second pick in the 2022 NFL draft, the Detroit Lions selected Michigan Wolverines star Aidan Hutchinson.

Nicknamed “Mr. Michigan,” this former four-star recruit barely got to see the field as a rotational player in his first year at Ann Arbor due to having Rashan Gary and Chase Winovich in front of him. When he took over as a starter, Hutchinson put up a very high tackle total in 2019 with 69 of those, of which 10 of them went for a loss, and he recorded 3.5 sacks.

Just two games into his junior season, he broke his leg and missed the rest of the year. He returned in year four and turned himself into a different beast, showing out big-time on a weekly basis, which made him a unanimous first-team All-American and a Heisman finalist, having racked up 62 total tackles, 16.5 of those for loss, 14 sacks, two forced fumbles, and three passes batted down.

Aidan Hutchinson's strengths

While his production as a pass-rusher is what earned Hutchinson most of the attention he received this past season, he may be a better run-defender. He was consistently able to attack the chest of blockers with his hands and set a physical edge to where tackles were forced to take a couple of steps backward at the point of attack.

Hutchinson can overwhelm tight-ends when soloed up against them and dislodge them in the run game, especially when the back tries to cut a run back his way or press the front-side while keeping vision on the backfield. He doesn’t shy away from taking on pulling guards head-on and creating chaos in the backfield, either.

His pursuit as the unblocked backside defensive end is so great that he quickly takes stuff off the play-sheet after the offense sees him blow those up. Even if Hutchinson isn’t directly at the point of attack, he can impact by crashing the inside gap with well-timed hand swipes or squeezing his man inside to minimize the size of the B-gap.

He displays outstanding effort, chasing after the ball until the echo of the whistle, and he shows uncommon overall awareness for a defensive lineman, like clueing a potential screen alert for the offense by pre-snap alignments or calling out pulling guards on multiple occasions before the play starts (especially in the Indiana game).

Hutchinson has tremendous snap anticipation and advanced hand-fighting skills. Two of his go-to maneuvers are the scissors or swim move. Working from wide alignment on most passing downs, he can bait the hands of the tackle by taking a direct angle initially and then widening his path to get around the guy. While he may not have the longest arms, you saw him follow up outside rush moves more and more with a rip-through to clear the reach of blockers when they were able to still stay engaged with him to some degree.

Even from a pretty high two-point stance, Hutchinson can create a lot of power to drive tackles backward once he’s set them up with his upfield burst earlier. He routinely put a potential first-round left tackle next year in Washington’s Jaxson Kirkland on his heels that way. There may be more dynamic athletes at the position, but one thing you see routinely on tape with the former Wolverine is the balance issues he causes for blockers and catches them “on the wrong foot.”

That was already apparent against Bucs’ first-round pick Tristan Wirfs all the way back in their 2019 matchup. At the same time, Hutchinson has the quick twitch to cross-face blockers and get through the inside lane cleanly when it opens up for him, quickly recognizing when tackles overset him.

In particular, he’s been highly effective with presenting a quick stutter and then crashing through the inside shoulder of tackles. He beat the Ohio State tackles on several occasions in their matchup this past season. A large portion of Hutchinson’s production as a pass-rusher came in second halves due to his ability to decipher and set up blockers. He recorded 60 extra pressures and 14 sacks, which were more than any other player in the draft.

Aidan Hutchinson's weaknesses

While Hutchinson anticipates the snap well, he has a bad tendency to add a false step with that back-foot to push off with a slight kick-back. He doesn’t have the elite burst or flexibility to win cleanly around the edge as well as that scissors-swipe work for him, tackles who quick-set him or get their hands inside his chest first give him trouble because he doesn’t have the length (only 32.5-inch arms) to disengage from blocks at times.

Plus, while the speed-to-power conversion is impressive, I’m unsure if he can straight-up bull-rush NFL tackles. In the 2020 Citrus Bowl, Hutchinson’ met with those two great Alabama OTs. Then in his final college game – the Orange Bowl – Georgia’s tackles made him far less effective, neutralizing inside moves on several occasions and being able to anchor down against the bull-rush. Hutch showed me a different side to him last year, and he has great lateral agility, but I don’t at him as an athletic phenom, like most non-QB first overall picks.

Conclusion on Aidan Hutchinson

Some people may say it’s a bit of a lazy comparison, but Aidan, to me, even looks like one of the Bosa brothers in that number 97 jersey. The hand swipes and strong anchor in the run game are very much alike, but they also share a lack of arm length, and the bend is more reminiscent of Joey. Hutchinson’s 4.74 in the 40 may be slightly below average for edge defenders this year at the combine, but he did lead the group in both the three-cone and 20-yard shuttle.

I may not have him at number one, like almost every ranking these days, it seems, but I still like the players a lot. Hutch plays with a good motor and has already shown plenty of alignment flexibility, as the Wolverines move him inside quite a bit on passing downs, even letting him work one-on-one against centers at times.

Looking back at the ’21 season, he seemingly got better every single week and will forever keep a spot in the heart of fans of the Maize and Blue, when he helped them finally defeat Ohio State in the “The Game,” racking up three sacks to earn the school’s record for a season.