Ohio State pass rusher Chase Young is "one of the better players I've ever scouted," former Redskins GM Scot McCloughan tells 106.7 The Fan.
Young is the projected second overall pick in Thursday's upcoming draft and has been lauded by many as a "generational talent" after coming off a 16.5-sack season at Ohio State in 2019. The Redskins are in prime position to add Young to their growing stockpile of pass rushers, and transform their defense into a top-flight program.
But what is it exactly about Young's game that sets him apart from his peers? Allow this longtime scout to tell you what jumps off the tape.
"I think Chase Young is one of the better players I've ever scouted, off of tape," McCloughan told 106.7 The Fan's Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier. "You know, I'm not doing school calls. I'm not at practice. If I do get lucky enough to see him play live, I will."
"But just from the standpoint of watching pure tape, he has a unique size attribute, physical attribute, upside – from the standpoint of instinctual football ability that's God-given, that is very interesting and you don't see it every year," he said. "Every now and then you see guys at certain positions."
"Not only is this a very important position for the NFL," he said, "it's hard to find guys that are pass rushers with that kind of size, and with the kind of size he's gonna have when it's said and done. He's been given a lot of gifts. He looks like he's in full awareness of them and uses them to his full advantage.
"The one thing that really stood out to me, now. The initial quickness is great. Like I said, the size – he's gonna be 275, 280, maybe a little bit bigger than that if he needs to be, if he wants to be in his NFL career. But it's just the fact that he has the speed, quickness, boom, size, strength, all that."
"But yet he does natural things that you can't teach that a lot of pass rushers and run players coming out of college, they don't have it," McCloughan went on. "He just feels... like the counter move on the pass rush. If he's stopped on the inside, he's got a counter and it's not set up, he just does it naturally.
"And when you're watching tape, you see so many pass rushers, so many guys that win off the edge with upfield rush, first step, which is great. But he has the knack – and like I said, it's God-given – to adjust during the play on the fly. And for a bigger guy with just scratching the surface in getting ready for the league, he a chance to be special."
"And it is generational," he said. "There's no doubt about it."
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