Leonard Taylor III
Height: 6’3″
Weight: 305 pounds
Position: Defensive Tackle
School: Miami (FL)
Current Year: Junior
Profootball Network:
Pedigree and production are two elements that are on Taylor’s side in his 2024 NFL Draft evaluation. The Hurricanes’ star was a consensus five-star recruit in the 2021 class, and he logged 23 tackles for a loss in his final year of high school.
In 2021, as a true freshman at the ACC level, Taylor wasted no time putting his talents to use. He logged 8.5 TFLs and two sacks in a breakout campaign, and he upped the ante in 2022 with 10.5 TFLs and three sacks.
So far in 2023, Taylor hasn’t been as productive from a statistical standpoint, but he’s still making an impact in the trenches each and every week while showing NFL teams that his physical skill set is worth investing in.
Strengths
-Hyper-explosive, energetic athlete with lightning-quick reaction speed and snap timing
-Sports a lean, well-leveraged frame with good proportional length and mass
-Can generate impressive amounts of force with his speed-to-power rushes
-Leverages his base well on power rushes and can churn legs to sustain power
-Can easily compress his frame through gaps while employing club-rip combos
-Able to win instantly against surging blockers with sudden, violent swim moves
-Processes blocking angles extremely quickly and instinctively acts on that information
-Can work off his power with push-pull moves and stack quick swim moves in succession
-Can precisely target extensions off the snap and swim through blocks to enter gaps-
-Weaponizes his explosiveness and leverage to power through gaps with hump moves
-Has the athleticism to stunt across the front and leverage his momentum into torque
-Can throttle up and use explosive capacity on demand to stress angles when stunting
-Flashes the necessary strength to stack blocks, absorb combos, and hold the line
-Able to deconstruct blocks, recover balance, and make plays in lateral pursuit
-Carries a relentless motor and unyielding energy in both phases
Weaknesses
-Without elite mass and length, lacks elite power capacity at the point of attack
-Lacks the high-end play strength to slab front-side zone blocks and prevent movement
-Doesn’t have the strength or torque capacity to shed run blocks cleanly with consistency
-Naturally doesn’t have the mass to withstand double-teams on a consistent basis
-Balance is easily eroded against combo blocks and heavy power exertions
-Sometimes lacks a pass-rush plan past initial power and is sometimes slow to adapt
-Can be more consistent stacking counters off of initial pass-rush moves later in reps
-At times, recoils against contact and drifts upright, stalling momentum and power load
-Lacks the required flexibility and ankle flexion to bend under blocks and sustain rushes
-Generally more of a linear athlete and struggles to flex through blocks or divert course
-Sometimes requires more patience after stacking blocks, giving up interior lanes
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