Players that will have a good camp
I just watched re-watched Rankins game against Kentucky and it showed pretty much all of his negatives/positives in 1 film.
Though he is versatile and can play most techniques along the line he will be best used as as a 3Tech or passrushing 1Tech. Louisville used him against LT's and RT's a lot and he isn't overly athletic that he's going to beat longer guys (5.0 40 speed vs 4.8 for similar type guys like Geno Atkins or 4.6 Aaron Donald) guys. Lesser Talent at LT on Kentucky's line was able to handle him the majority of the game.
He can sometimes miss tackles. Would like to see him finish more plays (makes more than he misses though)in the back field vs just being disruptive.
When they lined him up at 3Tech on rushing downs you got to see what he can do. He primarily has 3 moves and you saw them at the Senior Bowl. BullRush, Spin Move, Quick Hands/Arm Over. Sometimes he uses the dip right shoulder and then back into a spin once the Lineman gets leaning. All 3 were effective at some point but I'd have to say his feel for his spin move (can use it a bit much) is probably his best move. His quick feet/hands make his arm over pretty good too and his least effective move is his bull rush. For the record saying its his least effective isn't saying it's not effective entirely but his late/slow get off(talk about this shortly) allows a Lineman to get set thus nullifying it after a few steps on most occasions. He can for the most part get push with it and shows the ability to disengage once he gets close enough.
His 2nd/3rd step is faster than his 1st if that makes sense. His explosion off the ball just is not there. He usually leans off the ball then pops right up mixed with a handful of times he got off the ball same time as other players but he was never/rarely the 1st off the snap. Not sure if was due to scheme (read react) or what but he was routinely a half-step slow off the ball. Saw a few plays that could have been made if his get off was better (hopefully snap timing is coachable).
He had trouble disengaging but it was against the tackles which obviously means length will give him issues. I'm going to assume he does a much better job of this on the interior in the run game than he does on the exterior in the run game because of the disadvantage of shorter arms.
His Motor runs hot throughout the game. Appears he was bringing intensity all the way through the 4th quarter. Though there were times in the game he seemed to be occupied with just hand fighting I'll chalk it up to just being bored with setting the edge as a RE or LE all game and making sure all plays were funneled inside. There wasn't much action until he was able to kick inside where you really saw him have fun and get after it.
He can hold up on Double teams a lot better than you would think BUT he isn't a threat to separate or split them. Won't get moved too too far out of the action as he has a decent ability to anchor once he sticks his feet in the ground.
Doesn't play with a Nasty streak - We'll leave that up to Fairly.
I expect a really early/noticeable impact from Rankins Year 1. He might not get 6-8 sacks but he'll definitely help flush the pocket a lot more and we shouldn't see any of those 6-7 seconds coverage moments like the play in Arizona Week 1 of the 2015 Season.