Darrian Beavers Profile: Why the New York Giants drafted the linebacker in the 2022 NFL Draft

The New York Giants picked lineback Darrian Beavers with the 182nd pick in the 2022 NFL draft.

Right around the top-2000 overall recruits in 2017, Beavers spent his first two years at UConn before transferring to Cincinnati. Through his five years, his numbers increased every single season, with his best season coming in 2021, when his team became the first non-Power Five squad to make the CFP and he personally was a first-team All-AAC selection, with 98 tackles, 11 of those for loss, four sacks, a couple of fumbles forced and recovered each.

Darrian Beavers' strengths:

Beavers presents a large, muscular frame, with an 81-inch wingspan. He uses his hands well to get to the edge of blockers and forces the running back to stop his feet on the front-side of zone run plays, but he can also go underneath guys working up to him, who have that leverage advantage to the outside. Overall, when navigating around blockers, he shows pretty good feet, rips underneath guys and doesn’t allow himself to be taken off track too much. You see it quite a bit when scraping over the top from the backside, how he actually swipes away the reach of multiple blockers, to get over the top. And he has a feel for shooting through lanes against screens and sweeps to the sideline.

However, he can also deliver a strong punch and actually rock the pads of offensive linemen backwards at times, when he’s at the point of attack. Beavers has the size and hand usage to legitimately spend some time on the edge, with the ability to pull cloth and disengage from blocks. He did so largely in the Notre Dame game last year. He shows some impressive closing burst for a big linebacker as a blitzer and has some suddenness to him. That shows in him reducing the near-shoulder when rushing off the edge for example or winning on up-and-under moves. Beavers was involved on some twists as the set-up and second man.

He may look like Dont’a Hightower almost physique-wise, but Beaver shows better movement skills in space. He likes to play in-between routes as a zone defender and keep those feet moving, while being able to pedal backwards quite effectively. He was matched up one-on-one with the back quite a bit, and he didn’t seem uncomfortable turning and running on wheel routes either. Beavers displays an awareness for formations and how offenses may attack him, working over the top of rub concepts and getting to his landmarks early. You see his agility laterally when the quarterback scrambles to the sideline, to either chase that guy down or if he dumps it off to somebody, as Beaver comes back inside and wraps up the ball-carrier for a small gain. Beaver really bangs around tight-end when put at the line of scrimmage to pump them, as well as shoving RBs to the ground at times when he’s lined up on the edge and tries to slow down their release.

Darrian Beavers' weaknesses:

On the negative side, Beavers does get his eyes trapped in the backfield at times, rather than reading the blocking scheme, and gambles on some stuff. It seems he was given the green light to do so to some degree, but Beavers did allow some pretty big cutback lanes by cross-facing the guard and shooting through the A-gap on the backside of zone run plays, Other times he will do the exact opposite, when he sees a tight-end sifting across the formation and he leverages himself that way too much. In coverage, it doesn’t look like Beavers is actually processing information post-snap, and his pass-rush productivity leaves things to be desired.

Conclusion on Darrian Beavers:

Watching Beavers during Senior Bowl practices, he showed some impressive athleticism in space, flipping his hips around to stick with backs and tight-ends, plus having that short-area burst to crowd the catch point. He backed that up at the combine, where he was the nly linebacker to go below seven seconds in three-cone drill (6.91). I’m not sure how good he actually is at deciphering run schemes and route patterns on the fly. However, Beavers has quality experience in a versatile Cincinnati scheme, where he was lined up over the guards, on the edge, flexed out wide with running backs, had different roles in run fits, covered in man, zone and blitzed from different angles.

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