NFL1000 Scouting Notebook: The NFL’s Next Big Pass-Rusher?

Welcome to Bleacher Report’s NFL1000 Scouting Notebook, a weekly series where we’ll use the power of the 16-man NFL1000 scouting department to bring you fresh insights into the league and explain some of the more interesting (and potentially controversial) grades we give players every week.  

The full list of NFL1000 grades will be released Thursday, and we will attempt to preview some of what we are seeing in our film analysis here. 

We will look into Ty Montgomery becoming a legit force in the Green Bay backfield, dive into Tyler Lockett’s recent emergence and scouts answer a few questions on this week’s hot topics. But first, let’s start out with some film analysis of David Irving who has become a feared pass-rusher in Dallas.

Can David Irving Be the NFL’s Next Big Pass-Rusher?

Written by Justis Mosqueda

For the first half or so of the Dallas Cowboys’ matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the star defensive end in the game was Benson Mayowa, who finished with five tackles on the night. If you stuck through the Dallas comeback, though, you would have noticed a different defensive end: David Irving. Irving took over in the fourth quarter to help keep the Buccaneers scoreless, while the Cowboys put three Dan Bailey field goals on the board in a 26-20 Sunday Night Football victory.

Early on in the game, Irving, who has played in a start-less 25 games in his two-year NFL career, was used mostly as a pass-rushing defensive tackle. However, starting in the second half, he was used more as a rotational defensive end, and he was a borderline every-down player by the fourth quarter. For whatever reason, defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli, a former head coach with the Detroit Lions and Super Bowl-winning defensive line coach with Tampa Bay in the early 2000s, knew he had a mismatch advantage with Irving outside, and it paid off greatly.

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Against both ninth-year Gosder Cherilus and undrafted rookie Leonard Wester, who both played right tackle reps in the fourth quarter for the Buccaneers, Irving displayed the strength, power and awareness to work across the face of NFL offensive tackles after setting up a rush to the outside.

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Using an inside counter, he recorded two sacks, directly forced an interception by former first overall pick Jameis Winston and forced Winston outside of the pocket on Tampa Bay’s final offensive snap, which resulted in a fourth-down interception.

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As an offensive lineman, you must always protect the inside gap in big-on-big blocking situations, which is why the stances of offensive linemen always have their inside foot up, so they cut off the inside line, and why in vertical sets bookends drop their outside foot back before their inside foot. Because of this, it’s incredibly hard to consistently win by attacking inside lanes as an edge defender unless you’re a strong, explosive athlete who gets tackles out of position, by striking fear in their heart and having them sell out on protecting the outside lane first.

Luckily for Irving, he’s an incredible athlete who is capable of doing that, at least against tackles who are as talented as the duo Tampa threw out on its right side on Sunday. This should be no surprise, considering the fact NFL Draft Scout has Irving listed with a 38″ vertical jump at 273 pounds during his 2015 pro day. Only one first-round pass-rusher in the last decade or so has posted a better vertical at a heavier weight: Mario Williams, who surprisingly went first overall in the 2006 draft.

To say he’s an athletic freak would be an understatement. For reference, J.J. Watt, who led the NFL in sacks in 2012 and 2015, had a 37″ vertical coming out of college, while Shawne Merriman, who led the NFL in sacks in 2006, recorded a 40″ vertical at just a pound less than Irving’s pro day weight.

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Raw athleticism matters more on the defensive line than any other position on the football field, and Irving flashes elite gifts, both on film and on paper. There were even times when it took him just three steps to put the man assigned to him in pass protection behind his shoulder, which gave him a free lane to the quarterback off speed alone—a rare trait for someone listed in the 270s.

It’s clear Irving is developing, not only because Marinelli is trusting him with reps in crucial fourth quarters down the stretch of a potential title run, but also because there are moments when he squares up as a pass-rusher, instead of playing half a man. He’s …

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