In a recent episode of First Draft, an ESPN podcast, Todd McShay made the case for Shaq Lawson, Clemson’s one-year wonder pass-rusher. Unfortunately, he hedged his take, stating that Lawson wasn’t the athlete that Georgia’s Leonard Floyd is.
Let’s take a look at the first- through third-round edge defenders drafted since 2005 to see if this is factual. Not included in the data set are Tank Carradine, Phillip Merling, Victor Abiamiri, Shawne Merriman, Justin Tuck, Tamba Hali and Dan Cody, since I do not have full data on those players coming out of college.
We’ll look at Lawson’s combine effort through the scope of Waldo, since that’s a public metric. Speed and Explosive Power are composite scores, taking in the 40-yard dash/10-yard split and the vertical jump/broad jump, respectively. Twitch is his form of testing a player’s short shuttle, but by taking into account of a player’s 10-yard split. Agility is just simply a density adjusted three-cone.
The threshold set is going to be Lawson’s combine results, per the official combine sheet. In Speed, Lawson ranks 40th out of 112 prospects. Here are the eliminated prospects:
| Ryan Kerrigan |
| Michael Johnson |
| Chris Gocong |
| Jamie Collins |
| Dan Bazuin |
| Clint Sintim |
| Gaines Adams |
| Andre Branch |
| Jason Jones |
| J.J. Watt |
| Robert Ayers |
| Derrick Morgan |
| Barkevious Mingo |
| Marcus Smith |
| Shawn Crable |
| Scott Crichton |
| David Veikune |
| Jerry Hughes |
| Lawrence Jackson |
| Courtney Upshaw |
| Derrick Harvey |
| LaMarr Woodley |
| DeMarcus Ware |
| Olivier Vernon |
| Kamerion Wimbley |
| Charles Johnson |
| Jarron Gilbert |
| Khalil Mack |
| Sam Montgomery |
| Anthony Spencer |
| Anthony Barr |
| Jason Pierre-Paul |
| Dion Jordan |
| Jake Bequette |
| Jermaine Cunningham |
| Kony Ealy |
| Paul Kruger |
| Dee Ford |
| Aaron Maybin |
| David Pollack |
| Matt Roth |
| Larry English |
| Quentin Moses |
| Erasmus James |
| Kyle Van Noy |
| Darryl Blackstock |
| Anthony Chickillo |
| Sergio Kindle |
| Mathias Kiwanuka |
| Jarvis Moss |
| Will Clarke |
| Aldon Smith |
| Vincent Burns |
| DeMarcus Lawrence |
| Bjorn Werner |
| Koa Misi |
| Chandler Jones |
| Daniel Te’o-Nesheim |
| Cody Brown |
| Alex Carrington |
| Tyrone Crawford |
| Jason Hatcher |
| Darryl Tapp |
| Ikaika Alama-Francis |
| Akeem Ayers |
| Matt Shaughnessy |
| Frostee Rucker |
| Da’Quan Bowers |
| Trent Murphy |
| Jarvis Jones |
| Vinny Curry |
| Damontre Moore |
In Agility, Lawson ranks 16th out of the remaining 40 prospects. Here are the eliminated prospects:
| Brooks Reed |
| Shea McClellin |
| Ezekiel Ansah |
| Clay Matthews |
| Adrian Clayborn |
| Robert Quinn |
| Carlos Dunlap |
| Manny Lawson |
| Datone Jones |
| Nick Perry |
| Dontay Moch |
| Martez Wilson |
| Whitney Mercilus |
| Tim Crowder |
| Corey Lemonier |
| Allen Bailey |
| Brian Orakpo |
| Jadeveon Clowney |
| Jabaal Sheard |
| Quentin Groves |
| Jeremiah Attaochu |
| Quinton Coples |
| Everette Brown |
| Chris Ellis |
Twitch narrows down the list from 16 to 5. Here are the eliminated prospects:
| Adam Carriker |
| Jamaal Anderson |
| Brandon Graham |
| Connor Barwin |
| Chris Long |
| Cameron Jordan |
| Jason Worilds |
| Justin Houston |
| Mario Williams |
| Vernon Gholston |
| Cliff Avril |
The last five players are Lawson, Von Miller, Melvin Ingram, Turk McBride and Bruce Irvin. I’m not going to pretend to know what the temperature on McBride was coming out, but the other three were considered athletic pass-rushers. If we ran the last filter, Explosive Power, Lawson would be sitting by himself, as no top-100 EDGE prospect since at least 2005 has been able to hit above his marks in all four measurements of Waldo’s formula.
What you think of these metrics may vary, but you can’t state that Lawson isn’t a good athlete. That’s just not true.
Justis Mosqueda
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