Pass Protection
Little has arguably some of the best natural foot speed and footwork of any tackle in recent years, with the ability to cover speed rushers around the edge without having to break his slide:
And importantly, he is able to do this with small quick steps, which limit his lateral momentum compared to larger steps, allowing him to stop-and-start to mirror hesitation moves without going off balance:
And to change back inside to cover inside moves:
And even when he was forced to break his slide, he was able to work edge rushers wide of the quarterback with good hip flexibility:
He also shows very good hand usage, showing both the hand speed and placement to fight off early contact:
And did a good job of keeping his elbows inside his frame, thereby covering the center of his chest from defenders while also making it easier for him to direct an accurate and controlled two-handed punch to the frame of the defender:
His hand placement here is really worth noting, as his ability to strike to the frame of the defender makes the block much harder to shed, decreases the risk of a holding penalty and makes it possible for him to control his defender in space:
He also showed the ability to time this punch with the moment of contact, thereby allowing him to drive the defender wide without overextending his frame:
And when defenders looked to rip through his punch, he was able to fight through and regain inside hand purchase:
Throughout all of this, he shows the ability to work with good knee bend while keeping his weight over his frame, preventing defenders from looking to work him off balance. In short, when he puts it all together, Little is closer to the perfect pass-protecting tackle than any player in this class; it really is very hard to overstate how high his ceiling is – however, as with the run blocking, it is also worth noting what happens when he doesn’t put it all together, and how this can or can’t be remedied.
As with his run blocking, he did show generally good knee bend, but there were a couple of times on tape where you can see him straightening his knees, which raises his pad level, allowing the defender to get under his pads and bull-rush him back towards the quarterback:
There were also a couple of times where he allowed his arms to drop off after the snap – while he did a good job of recovering quickly, by allowing his frame to get exposed in this way, he does run the risk of getting beaten by swim moves at the NFL level:
However, the most consistent inconsistency for him on tape – and the one that has been the major form of criticism for him this draft season, is his vulnerability to inside moves. Through the three games I made clips of for this piece, there were six instances where he got beat inside in pass protection, so let’s go through them quickly. On one, he got his arms too low off the snap, as seen above, and wasn’t able to recover in time to prevent the push off by the defender:
One, he does a good job up to the point where the quarterback starts to scramble and then the defender is able to recover back upfield where Little’s only option would have been to hold him:
Now, two were the result of him getting too wide in his pass set:
This can, at least in part, be put down to the amount of pressure Ole Miss put on Little in these situations. QB Jordan Ta’amu had a tendency to drop very deep, meaning that Little was asked to cover a wide potential rush angle and couldn’t set for the first five steps, instead relying on driving the defender wide, which is what most NFL tackles would do when forced to block a safety coming from a wide angle. The other issue here appears to be a lack of discipline, as on the second of the two plays above, he just takes one extra step outside that he really isn’t forced into by either the defender’s speed or positioning – this, in particular, is something that could be an issue in the NFL.
This also showed up in his hand usage, as while he was generally very good, the two most troubling plays in pass protection were ones where he reached for a block that wasn’t really in reach rather than waiting for the defender to come to him, allowing the defender to side-swipe him and get quick penetration. Given Little’s hand speed, placement and arm length, there is really no need for him to do this – and on the vast majority of plays he doesn’t, but this lack of discipline is comfortably the biggest concern with him I have on tape:
As with his run blocking, Little shows the ability to do everything you could ask of a pass blocking tackle, but there are occasional breakdowns in discipline that can be really frustrating to watch; it is clear he can do everything – he does it much of the time – but the plays where he drops his hands or punches a step too early are things that NFL coaches will really want to remove from his game, and a major part of his value will depend on how he interviews – the Panthers met with Little both at the combine and at his Pro Day.
If coaches feel that his issues in this regard are the result of insufficient coaching, they will likely feel a lot better about him than if they think it is a more deep-rooted problem with Little himself.
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