Marquis Haynes (#98)
Haynes wasn’t drafted to be a run defender, and for the most part the Panthers don’t plan to use him on rushing downs and never had, so this section will be unsurprisingly quite brief, but needless to say – on the rushing plays against the Seahawks where he was on the field, he had little-to-no impact:
On two of these plays the ball doesn’t go anywhere near Haynes, but on neither does he really cause his blocker much trouble. At the end of the day, he is a 235 pound defensive end – anybody who expects him to be an impact player against the run as a 4-3 defensive end are kidding themselves. Even on the play where the ball does come his way, it is still far too easy for the offensive lineman to put him where he wants him, and to be fair, this really isn’t on Haynes as such – this is not how he should be used; unless he is on the field in a 3-4 look, he really shouldn’t be out there outside of third downs. When the Panthers drafted Haynes, they talked about him being in the ‘joker’ role and so when he is asked to defend the run at the point of attack, it is understandable that he won’t fare well. So how does he do against the pass?
Haynes played on six passing plays against the Seahawks, and while one was a misdirection play action:
On the other five, he was given a chance to show what he can do as an edge rusher – while he managed to get something close to pressure on the following play:
At no point is the guard truly stretched; he is able to direct Haynes around the quarterback. For a player of Haynes’ size, he is going to need to beat blockers with either size or agility in order to get to the quarterback, as when he makes contact it is just too easy for the blocker to negate his momentum and, frankly, he just isn’t fast enough to give NFL tackles issues around the edge – because they are not stressed covering the edge, he has no chance of beating them back inside with counters. On almost all of his passing reps against the Seahawks, all he managed to achieve was a brief jog before being negated by a tackle:
The only time this wasn’t true was when he went up against former Panther Ed Dickson, and even then, the ball was out long before the tight end gave up inside leverage:
When the Panthers drafted Haynes, they were hoping to use him either in obvious pass rushing situations where they could use his speed to threaten off the edge or as a defender in coverage as they looked to incorporate more 3-4 looks into their defense, but Haynes has disappointed to this point – even for a fifth-rounder.
At the NFL level, he just doesn’t seem capable of causing real problems with his speed alone and, having not been asked to drop into coverage at all, he has yet to be be used in this regard for the Panthers this season as far as I can tell. In short, the Panthers seemed to think they had drafted a 3-4 outside linebacker when they took Haynes in the 2018 draft, when in fact, what they got was a very small 4-3 defensive end. It would be unfair to label Haynes a bust this early in his career, but given that he turns 25 in the coming weeks, questions have to be asked about how much growth it would be reasonable to expect from a player who has spent the four previous seasons as a starter in the SEC.
Up Next: Bryan Cox, Jr.
