Throughout the 2010 Draftseason, we’ll be pitting two highly regarded prospects against each other and evaluate them on different aspects of the game and see which one emerges victorious. Today it’s a the battle for supremacy at the defensive end position as South Florida’s Jason-Pierre Paul duels Georgia Tech’s Derrick Morgan.
1. SIZE: Derrick Morgan stands an impressive 6’4 and 272 pounds which will be much to the delight of scouts and G.M.s. If you looked in the dictionary under prototypical NFL defensive end body you wouldn’t find anything. But if there was such an entry, you’d see a picture of Jason Pierre-Paul. He stands 6’6 and 260 pounds. That is exactly the kind of size NFL teams will be drooling over.
ADVANTAGE: PIERRE-PAUL
2. SPEED: Pierre-Paul relies on his speed and quickness off the snap when pressuring quarterbacks. For a man his size he can really move well. Morgan has above average speed but isn’t as quick as Pierre-Paul and falls into an early hole in this competition.
ADVANTAGE: PIERRE-PAUL
3. PASS RUSHING: Morgan is a relentless pass rusher who uses a combination of speed and power to get to the quarterback. He can fight through double teams and also has a wide variety of pass rushing moves in his arsenal. Pierre-Paul uses his elite speed to his advantage when rushing the passer. He doesn’t have the strength of Morgan to fight through double teams, but can get leverage with his long arms and frame.
ADVANTAGE: MORGAN
4. VS. THE RUN: Pierre-Paul tends to get too high which allows him to get blocked off the ball. As noted above he isn’t as powerful as Morgan and is susceptible to double teams. He has the frame and ability to excel in this area but he will definitely need a lot of work from the team that drafts him. Morgan is very solid vs. the run. He has more of a stout build which he uses to stay low and fight through would be blockers. He plays with a lot of intensity and always fights to get to the runner.
ADVANTAGE: MORGAN
5. MOTOR: Morgan has a relentless motor. He is fighting as soon as the ball is snapped and doesn’t let up one bit until he hears a whistle. He shows great backside pursuit and can catch up to a ball carrier long after he thinks he is in the clear. Pierre-Paul shows a good initial burst off the snap but will often let up too early when pursuing a ball carrier from behind.
ADVANTAGE: MORGAN
6. PRODUCTION: Pierre-Paul is a raw player with one one year of Division 1 football under his belt. In that year he managed 42 tackles, 6 sacks, and 1 interception. Morgan played 3 seasons at Georgia Tech and amassed 112 tackles, with 18 sacks, and no interceptions. To make this a little more fair we can average out Morgan’s stats to 37 tackles, and 6 sacks over 3 years.
ADVANTAGE: MORGAN
CONCLUSION: After falling into a early 0-2 hole Derrick Morgan scores 4 unanswered points and wins. While Pierre-Paul has the frame and speed scouts love, he is just too raw of a player to take over a guy like Morgan. Morgan has a great combination of speed, power, and size and is truly an elite and complete defensive end prospect.
There are serious rumors that my Bucs are considering taking P.-P. at #3. I hope not, as to me, he is a boom-or-bust type player. Morgan is a better choice but when I saw him on TV, his sacks tended to come on games & off blitzes; I didn’t really see a guy who could play head-up on an OT & get to the QB. Morgan was handled in the bowl game pretty well.
I don’t like taking DEs rd.1 in general; they seem to have a very high bust rate.