It is no secret that the Panthers are looking to improve their pass rush, and while they have gone some of the way towards that by adding veteran edge rusher Bruce Irvin, there is still a lot of room for improvement in this area. It should come as little surprise then that the Panthers appear to be looking long and hard at drafting an edge rusher in the upcoming draft, potentially as early as the first round. Before we dive deep into Brian Burns, queue up our latest podcast episode, in which we break down my entire edge rusher board and talk through why I’m not as high on guys like Montez Sweat and Clelin Ferrel, but – as you’ll see – I’m very high on Burns:
Download/Subscribe To The Great British Drafting Show: Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Spotify/RSS/Pocket Casts
One player who they have been linked with repeatedly in this regard over the past month or so is Florida State’s Burns, so what does he offer a prospective team and would he make sense for the Panthers?
Pass Rush
The headline appeal with Brian Burns as a pass rusher is fairly evident on tape – he’s really very fast:
And not only does this allow him to get around the edge effectively, it also allows him to close gaps and make plays that most other edge rushers just can’t:
What is also very important to note is that Burns isn’t just fast, he also shows excellent hip flexibility, to allow him to bend around the edge to the quarterback, thereby maximizing the amount of impact he was able to create with his speed:
This combination of speed and bend makes him arguably the best pure outside rusher in the draft class, he even flashes an outside two-handed swim move:
However, there are some things he could do with working on in order to make his speed rush even more effective. First, while he was general very good in this regard, there were a couple of times on tape when he exposed his frame to the tackle and while he was still able to get outside, he wasn’t able to turn the corner as this allowed the blocker to get a hand on his chest:
Similarly, while he generally used his hands well, there were a couple of instances where this too could have been better, as by being late in getting his arms up, he allowed the tackle to negate his rush almost completely:
Of course, no edge rusher is going to win on every snap; for the most part, both of these issues were more a matter of imperfection rather than significant flaw. In fact, the only real concern with Burns as a speed rusher is his size and resulting strength. At the combine he weighed in at nearly 250 pounds, but he looked slighter than this on tape – by his own admission; bearing in mind he’s 6-5, there were times where his lack of bulk and functional strength were an issue, with the most common way this showed up being when he was able to beat a tackle outside but wasn’t able to prevent them just pushing him wide:
This isn’t the end of the world by any means, but it is something that teams should be aware of, and if he is able to add some functional strength and bulk without significantly affecting his speed and bend, this is something that his future team should really look to work on. However, as good as his speed rush is, in order to be an elite pass rusher at the NFL level you need to have more than one tool in your toolbox, and fortunately for Burns, he has a well-developed inside game to go with his speed rush.
The simplest form this takes is just threatening the outside rush and then putting his foot in the ground and breaking back inside:
Which he can build upon with a nice inside swim move:
And even a fairly well-developed inside spin move:
There is still room to grow, however, and from a technical point of view, this would best be achieved by focusing on keeping his pad level down during his inside swim move in particular, as he has a tendency to get more upright through his inside step and this not only exposes his frame to the blocker but also raises his pad level more generally, making it easier to negate his momentum:
However, the biggest issue is that these inside moves seem at this point to be at least somewhat predetermined rather than things he has in his arsenal to use in a reactive way when he sees the tackle committing to stop the speed rush. This can lead him to undersell the outside rush at times:
But more importantly, it means that when the tackle does overcommit outside, Burns doesn’t consistently show the awareness to then break inside in some form.
On all of these plays, Burns is able to use his speed to force the tackle into breaking his slide to commit outside, but doesn’t then use that to his advantage. This can be an issue of processing speed, but it can also be something that can be worked on with coaching, as it was one of the areas where Efe Obada showed significant improvement for the Panthers last season, and so if a prospective team thinks this is an area where Burns can realistically improve, this could lead to a significant increase in his pass rushing value.
In short, Burns has arguably the highest pass rushing ceiling of any player in this class, and his ability to offer a speed rush with reasonably well-developed inside moves also gives him a relatively high floor in this regard, with improving pad level, functional strength and rush strategy being the main ways he could show significant development.
While it isn’t a large enough part of his game to merit greater consideration, it is also worth noting – given the Panthers shift toward more of a 3-4 defense – that Burns also shows really good movement skills as a coverage defender, covering a large amount of space with fluid changes of direction and even decent awareness of where receivers are:
This is never going to be the core of what he does as a pass defender, but if his future team wants to drop him into coverage at times, this is something he shows a reasonable amount of potential in.
Up Next: Run Defense, Overall Grade and Player Comp
