FanPost

Perspective on Clelin Ferrell


Ferrell's NFL journey has been crazy. In a stats driven league, he has not faired well in terms of public perception. But there's a lot more than meets the casual fans eye.

Starting with his draft stock, Ferrell was ranked lower than he was taken according to several draft outlets, but why? Here's a kid who burst onto the scheme as a redshirt sophomore on a national championship team. He went on to record 27 sacks in three seasons. Unfortunately for him, he suffered a foot injury which didn't allow him to run a 40. It just so happened that his fellow DE prospects in Sweat, Gary, Allen and Burns put up stellar times in their 40's. So while people will insist 40 time's don't mean much, they do in terms of draft stock.

Ferrell was drafted specifically for Paul Guenther's defensive scheme. At the time, we had no DEs on the roster worth mentioning. When a 50 year old Frostee Rucker is your money DE, you know there's big time problems afoot. Guenther's system calls for length DEs to play contain with the pressure coming from a pro bowl level 3 Tech DT and A gap blitzing. Although any system can work with the proper talent and execution, Guenther's defense is archaic in that he tells his DL to focus on the run on 1st and 2nd down in hopes of setting up a 3rd and long. There are two problems with this. First, it isn't the 1980's and NFL teams throw the ball on early downs. Secondly, Guenther SUCKS at every aspect of the job- playcalling, teaching, player evaluation, game planning, etc.

Back to the scheme, for years with the Bengals Guenther had a DL that featured DEs, Michael Johnson, Carlos Dunlap and 3T Geno Atkins. The DEs were huge, the 3T was undersized and explosive. And while it's true that Dunlap became a great pass rusher, he had 26 career sacks at Florida to Ferrell's 27. We had Hall and Hurst at the time, but neither was close to the player Atkins was. So lacking were they that Ferrell was played at DT at over a 1/4 clips AS A ROOKIE. Not only is this a sad state of affairs in terms of the defensive talent, it also often took him out of the role of EDGE rusher on 3rd and long.

Last year, Ferrell was clearly an improved player boasting overall grades that were higher than Crosby who had many more sacks. Unfortunately, he only played in 10.5 games due to COVID and a season ending injury. In fact, he was dominating the Jets when he got injuried. This year, Gus Bradley was acquired to install his defense, a version of Seattle's 4-3 under. This particular defense is not a great fit for Ferrell. Guenther's defense is a 4-3 that function like a 5-2 with 3-4 principles. He wants his DLs to beat the blockers off the snap and disrupt whatever blocking scheme they are trying to employ and play the run on the way to the QB. Ferrell is not an arch runner nor can he play SAM, nor is he a DT. So what we have is a quality player miscast in a system coming off the bench. This is NOT all bad though as Bradley stated he will be making wholesale substitutes with the 2nd DL unit. One of the many problems with last year's defense was the lack of rotation.