Doug Farrar 

Quick, strong and dangerous: Dexter Lawrence II is the NFL’s very large unicorn

At 340lbs, the New York Giants star would be the largest player to lead the NFL in sacks for a season. Few would bet against him on current form
  
  

Dexter Lawrence II brings down Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow in a game earlier this season.
Dexter Lawrence II brings down Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow in a game earlier this season. Photograph: Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports

As you may expect for a discipline that requires speed as well as strength, the list of NFL sackmasters and pressure artists weighing 340lbs or more is pretty short.

Per Pro Football Reference, Dan “Big Daddy” Wilkinson, who played for the Cincinnati Bengals, Detroit Lions, Miami Dolphins and Washington from 1994 though 2006, is the NFL’s all-time leading defender in that size range with 54.5 career sacks. Wilkinson stood 6ft 4in and weighed (at least) 340lbs. Behind Wilkinson are Sam Adams (44.0 career sacks at 6ft 3in, 350lbs), Shaun Rogers (37.5 sacks at 6ft 4in, 350lbs), Grady Jackson (35.5 sacks at 6ft 2in, 345lbs), Ted Washington (34.5 sacks at 6ft 5in, 365lbs), and Haloti Ngata (32.5 sacks at 6ft 4in, 340lbs).

The seventh man on that list is Dexter Lawrence II of the New York Giants. At age 26, and in just his sixth NFL season, he has 30 career sacks, and he’s putting away opposing quarterbacks at a rate we’ve never before seen for a man his size. Lawrence should not be as quick to the pocket, or as fast chasing quarterbacks, when standing 6ft 4in and weighing 340lbs.

As it stands at the end of Week 8, Lawrence leads the NFL with 9.0 sacks. Among other players who primarily ply their trade on the interior of the defensive line, the 6ft 4in, 285lbs Zach Allen of the Denver Broncos ranks second with 4.0.

If Lawrence ends the season as the NFL’s sack leader, he’ll be by far the heaviest player ever to do so in a full season. The record-holder is Kevin Carter of the 1999 St Louis Rams, who had 20 sacks, including the three postseason games that concluded with the franchise’s first Super Bowl win. Carter did his thing at 305lbs, everywhere from the edge to outside the guards.

Was Carter playing nose tackle on 39% of his plays, and getting double-teamed 117 times through the first seven weeks of a season? No, he was not. But Lawrence has done exactly that.

There have been other larger sackmasters – JJ Watt (288lbs) and Aaron Donald (280lbs) are recent examples who have led the NFL in sacks – but none of them have been close to Lawrence’s physical profile. And it was the Pittsburgh Steelers’ job to handle him on Monday night. Lawrence had no sacks and one quarterback hit in PIttsburgh’s 26-18 win, but he threw Steelers center Ryan McCollum to the ground rather rudely on one play, and beat a triple-team to set up a Brian Burns sack on another.

The latter play is key to understanding Lawrence’s overall impact. Compounding the issue for opposing offensive lines is the specter of Giants edge-rushers Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux, and Azeez Ojulari when Thibodeaux has been injured. That’s given those lines the unfortunate option to single-team Lawrence, and while there are very few absolutes in football, this is one: If you single-team Lawrence, he will pummel your quarterback sooner rather than later.

So what makes Lawrence unique?

“I tell you, he’s been unbelievable,” Bill Belichick told Peyton Manning on ESPN. “The pressure he gets up the middle has really opened things up for Thibodeaux and Burns coming off the edge. When you get that inside pressure, and the quarterback can’t step up, that brings the edge-rushers into the rush. If you don’t get that inside pressure, the quarterback can move up in the pocket, away from those edge-rushers, slide up in the pocket, and get a good, clean throwing lane.”

When Manning asked Belichick whether he’d make his offensive linemen double Lawrence as the primary schematic idea, the coach had no hesitation.

“100%. I would try to get help on Lawrence wherever he is. The edge guys are a problem, too … but Lawrence is a bigger problem.”

If the greatest coach in football history is on to that concept, perhaps the coaches in the NFL right now should follow suit.

Not that double-teams will always work, of course. On this Week 7 sack of Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, Lawrence was doubled by center Cam Jurgens and right guard Mekhi Becton. Instead of attacking them with pure power, Lawrence went all the way around Philly’s offensive line and past left tackle Fred Johnson to meet Hurts back in the pocket for the takedown. People this big should not move with this kind of quickness.

“I’d be remiss to not say anything about Dexter Lawrence,” Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said postgame. “That guy is a stud.”

And if Lawrence isn’t running around your double-teams with the speed of a 280lbs edge-rusher, he’s using leverage and power and technique to demolish every blocker in his way. This was the case for Lawrence’s quarterback hit on Dak Prescott in Week 4. Center Cooper Beebe and right guard Zack Martin (a likely Hall of Famer one day) were assigned the unenviable task of doubling Lawrence. In the end, Lawrence made the 315lbs Martin look like a small child.

Perhaps Lawrence’s most devastating technique is his “Half a Man” move, in which he switches from one side of a blocker to the other with alarming speed. Sam Darnold of the Minnesota Vikings got the worst of this in Week 1, when Lawrence started on right guard Ed Ingram’s inside shoulder, worked to his outside shoulder, and collapsed everything in-between.

Another move that Lawrence uses with more effectiveness than anybody else in football is the old “Stunt 4-3” gambit. In the early 1970s, Pittsburgh Steelers defensive line coach George Perles and Hall of Fame defensive tackle Joe Greene combined to create a ploy in which Greene would tilt his body at a 45-degree angle to the blocker, which allowed him to zoom through gaps with even more authority. Lawrence used this for two sacks against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 5; guards Christian Haynes and Anthony Bradford were helpless.

That’s another problem for Lawrence’s opponents – he can move all over the front, and that’s been more of a priority this season.

“I’ve been moving around more this year,” Lawrence said in early October. “That’s been the goal for the year. To try to help me get away from some doubles here and there and create some unbalances on the offensive line. I embrace it, and I tell them to double team me honestly. It’s my world, and I’m just going through it. Each week, I’m getting better at going through it.”

It is indeed Dexter Lawrence’s world, and good luck stopping him on the way to a single-season sack title the likes of which football has never before seen.

 

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