The NFL’s defensive evolution is all about speed to power

We can all picture it.

It’s Week 12, and the Philadelphia Eagles are playing the Los Angeles Rams. Jalen Hurts goes to pass, but somehow, someone has felled the mighty Jordan Mailata at left tackle. All 6’8, 365 pounds of Mailata was put on his butt as Hurts escaped the pocket. Rookie Rams’ EDGE Jared Verse took three steps, put his hands into Mailata’s chest pad and knocked him on his ass.

Verse did this to almost every offensive tackle in the league last season en route to the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year award, but how he won as a pass rusher is very telling. It was practically all converting speed to power with his bull rush.

Wide Left’s James Foster charted all of Verse’s pass rush reps in 2024, and found that 44 of his 89 pressures came from using power, the most he’s EVER charted. Verse came into the NFL with one dominant trait, and used that trait to win effectively in the NFL.

However, when you look at the percentage of players who won with power in the NFL, a trend pops up. Of the top-10 winners when it comes to power, eight have been drafted after 2020. These include premier guys like Verse and Houston’s Will Anderson Jr., to budding stars like Buffalo’s Greg Rousseau and Tampa Bay’s Yaya Diaby, to even guys in smaller roles like the Chargers’ Tuli Tuipulotou. Just outside the top-10 is Travon Walker, who is another budding star who wins primarily with power. Power has become the name of the game, if you can’t win by running through the linemen’s face as a young guy, you might need more time to develop (there are exceptions to this, of course, namely Micah Parsons).

But, how did we get here? Growing up as a former defensive lineman, the guy to copy was Von Miller, who terrorized opponents with speed and bend around the edge. Now, almost every young pass rusher is utilizing the long arm and bull rush en route to terrorizing the NFL. To find out why, we have to look at where both the NFL and college game are going.

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The reason we got to this point is partially due to who these guys are getting after. The days of statue QBs are mostly gone, relics of a game that has grown and spread out quickly. There are more signal callers now who are able to get out the pocket and throw javelins down the field for explosive plays. When NFL defenses decided to put lids on the explosive plays and keep everything in front of them, the mantra went down to the defensive line as well.

The 2015 NFL Draft is a good example of this, with the first two pass rushers off the board being Dante Fowler Jr and Vic Beasley, who win primarily with speed. Being able to bend and flatten the corner was the biggest thing you wanted in a pass rusher, with established names like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees still in the game. You all remember seeing it, because every pass rusher for your favorite team has done it. It’s third down and they take off up the field, ripping to the outside and coming around the corner, just for the QB to step up and out of the pocket, right where the defensive lineman was. First down, and you want to throw something at the TV.

Well, so does the defensive coordinator.

Because of all the athletic QBs in the league, defenses opted to tell their pass rushers on the edge to rush through the pocket, and not around. By compressing the pocket instead of trying to bend around the corner, you create a sieve around the passer to force him into discomfort.

On top of that, the defensive schematic changes in the NFL reflected a change in how defensive line play has to be done. As Vic Fangio’s tree of defensive coordinators took over the NFL as the counter to Shanahan and McVay offenses, the motus operandi was to play the run on the way to the pass. If you’ve been on football twitter before, you’ve probably heard of “gap and a half” technique. Playing your primary gap, but having the ability to play your secondary gap. Because NFL defenses wanted to take away explosive passes, fewer bodies are used to defend the run, meaning defensive linemen can’t pin their ears back and turn the corner on the offensive linemen. As NFL offenses got bigger and leaned more on duo and counter as their run game du jour, smaller and bendier edge rushers were getting taken off the field, their roles reduced to pass rush specialists. Thumping people up front is in for NFL defenses, and it starts in the trenches.

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This is also caused by changes to the game at the college level, where the spread and wide splits forced changes in body types up front. I reference this Kirby Smart coaching clinic a lot, but it’s a really good look at how the college game has forced one of the premier coaches and developer of defensive NFL talent to change who he plays up front. He also offered photos of the change, starting with his Alabama defenses in 2009 compared to his Georgia team in 2017:

As the college game spread out and sped up, smaller bodies had to be put on the field. The answer to this style of offense was the mint front, which essentially created odd spacing out of an even number count. Sure, there are four defenders on the defensive line, but this looks a lot different from what your dad’s defense looked like:

So how does this change the bodies up front?

Modern defensive linemen are playing the run on the way to the pass, but have to do it in much slimmer bodies. Lining up at the 4i means you need enough strength to defend the run and get doubled, but also the conditioning to stay on the field and rush the passer. Because the run is played first, most guys end up using speed to power or a bull rush to win against the pass, so they don’t fly out of the picture.

In the most recent NFL Draft, guys like Mykel Williams and Shemar Stewart both primarily win with power, but that’s largely because they needed to after playing the 4i in college at 265-275 pounds. That’s not defensive tackle size in the NFL, so they move out to the edge, where they can convert speed to power better without needing to turn the corner or bend as often. Jared Verse is a unique style of player who didn’t come from this style of defense, but showed the ability to win with pure strength without needing to turn the corner.

I’ve always said the NFL is cyclical, but it’s especially prevalent in this era. Guards are getting bigger, and the run game is coming back to life. Defensively, we’re seeing the change as more defensive linemen come into the NFL with the bull rush as their go-to move. It all ties together in the circle of football.