Green Bay Packers: 3 First Round EDGE Draft Prospects

Jaelan Phillips – UCLA/Miami

Phillips shares similarities with Rousseau, one of them being that they both wore number 15 for Miami, which can make watching them back to back pretty confusing. Aside from that, though, they both have similar styles as slimmer edge rushers who try to win with speed. Phillips doesn’t have the production that Rousseau did, with eight sacks and 15.5 TFL’s in his lone season with the Hurricanes, but those numbers certainly aren’t bad.

While Rousseau can beat interior lineman just with his burst and speed, Phillips can do a similar job but has more refinement. He knows how to use his quickness to beat offensive linemen and has developed more strategies to utilize it.

He also shares with Rousseau that he isn’t powerful enough to consistently stop the run. Teams could definitely target him at the next level and run outside to his side of the field, making it very difficult for the rest of his teammates to get to the ball.

The biggest difference that separates Phillips from his Miami counterpart and most college rushers is that he has multiple moves designed to get to the quarterback. When he wants to get outside, he has great hands that chop off the tackle’s arms and give him the leverage and lane to the quarterback before the lineman can reset his hands. He also has a great spin move but often uses it in odd ways, like spinning to the outside.

If he can learn to get outside to set up that spin, it could be a great move for him at the next level. It uses his refined quickness and technical skill to get to the QB, and having that ability is huge at this point in a pass rusher’s career.

Phillips is a guy that could get some time early in his career as a strictly third-down rusher, but he just doesn’t have enough in the run game right now to impact the game in quite the way the Green Bay Packers might want. He could definitely still be an option here, but I’d be surprised if this is the route they went with the 29th pick.