When the New York Jets drafted Will McDonald, it essentially spelled the end of Bryce Huff’s tenure in New York. It also ushered in a pressure-packed second year for McDonald when he would be expected to fill Huff’s shoes. The loss of John Franklin-Myers and Haason Reddick’s holdout further accelerated that spotlight.
To the outside observer, McDonald has seemingly been living up to his draft billing thus far in 2024. Pro Football Focus credits him with 10 pressures on 62 pass rush snaps (16.1%), and the official statistics show five sacks. His 29.0 PFF run defense grade couldn’t be much worse, but pass rush is the most important part of his game.
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However, the numbers can lie, especially with such a small sample size. The Jets haven’t exactly faced elite offensive lines thus far, and some of McDonald’s numbers seem a bit gimmicky.
To what extent has McDonald truly shown progress in Year 2, and how much of his statistical rise is luck? Will his success be replicable against better opponents? Is there any hope for his run defense?
Pass rush
McDonald’s sack numbers are somewhat inflated by plays that were not pass-rush related. Nevertheless, he has made a pass-rush impact.
His first sack of the season came when he was a quarterback spy. Yes, he got in the backfield and made a good tackle on Levis, but that is more like a tackle for loss than a sack. Good play, but not a pass rush win.
His second sack showcased everything wrong with the statistic. McDonald was on the ground when Will Levis tripped over his ankle and decided to shovel the ball backward. Quincy Williams recovered the fumble, and McDonald was credited with a strip sack.
McDonald’s third sack against Tennessee was his most legitimate win of the season. He won first contact, took the tackle’s open chest in a bull rush, used a rip move to get past him, bent around the corner, and wrapped up Levis with his long arms. It was particularly encouraging to see McDonald win with power.
Against New England, McDonald racked up another three sacks (two half, one solo), mostly not on true pass rush wins.
He broke inside on a stunt and ultimately beat the guard around to grab the quarterback for a half-sack. Certainly a good play, but not quite the same as beating a tackle one-on-one.
On one play, the Patriots allowed McDonald to come in unblocked on the backside of a play fake.
McDonald’s other half-sack was a legitimate pass rush win, as he used a spin move inside and then split the tackle and guard to get to Jacoby Brissett.
Ultimately, no one examines the film on the other sack artists in the NFL. How many of them rack up easy unblocked sacks or numbers that don’t tell the full story? This is why parsing out pass rush success is very difficult via metrics. Sacks are highly misleading, and even pressures do not provide full context.
Still, McDonald could become one of the better finishers because of his 34⅞-inch arms (91st percentile among edge rushers). Even in 2023, he converted his 12 pressures into three sacks (25%), which meant one out of every four of his pressures resulted in a sack. This continued a trend from college where he turned 33 of his 114 pressures into sacks (28.9%).
Over the last several years, the Jets have had many excellent pass rushers, but they always struggled to bring the quarterback down relative to the amount of pressure they generated. Haason Reddick was brought in to fix that, but the Jets drafted McDonald for largely the same reason.
Think about McDonald compared to Bryce Huff. Although Huff had 10 sacks in 2023, he converted just 14.9% of his pressures into sacks (10/67). While consistent pressure can disrupt the defense even more, the Jets cannot think takedown ability is irrelevant after allowing so many back-breaking first downs where the quarterback got away from pressure.
John Franklin-Myers was the polar opposite of McDonald, converting just 9.5% of his pressures into sacks during his four seasons with the Jets.
McDonald’s pass rush get-off has also improved in the early going from 0.91 seconds in 2023 to 0.82 so far this season. While there is a weak correlation between get-off and pass-rush effectiveness, for a speed rusher, gaining every slight advantage is critical.
There are some other good pass rush wins on McDonald’s film besides his sacks. He pressured Will Levis on three consecutive plays near the end of the Titans game, including one takedown. His trademark spin move has shown up on a couple of occasions, including one where he did not pressure the quarterback but occupied two blockers on a stunt to cause a sack.
Like the creativity from McDonald here
Jets run a ET stunt but inside of just knifing inside McDonald beats the RT with a well timed spin move and carries him inside (softening the edge for Q to get the sack).
Physical with the RG as he works his elbow the keep separation and… pic.twitter.com/Duipq9FK2z
— Joe Blewett (@Joerb31) September 20, 2024
Weaknesses
The Jets need more consistency from McDonald as a pass rusher, though. Some issues from his rookie season still show up regularly on his film.
McDonald has a habit of running himself up the arc and out of a play. Tackles are perfectly content to allow an edge rusher to rush at a deeper angle than the quarterback’s drop. Occasionally, McDonald spins off and tries to get back into the play, but he limits himself greatly when he takes his rush too deep. He needs to find a better way to soften the edge, primarily by threatening the blocker inside.
Additionally, the book is out on McDonald: he loses first contact a lot. He’s shown some improvement in this area, particularly with taking the open chest, but he’s still more focused on defeating contact once it’s there than preventing it.
Quality NFL tackles will take full advantage of these weaknesses. So far, McDonald has faced one elite pass-blocker (Trent Williams), an average one (Mike Onwenu), a promising rookie (JC Latham), and three subpar tackles (Colton McKivitz, Nicholas Petit-Frere, Caedan Wallace).
Of McDonald’s 10 legitimate pressures, four were partially or fully unblocked (via stunt/naked bootleg/backside free release), three came against Petit-Frere, one was on McKivitz, and two were against Onwenu. McDonald faced Williams and Latham 17 times one-on-one and generated zero pressures.
Watch Trent Williams catch McDonald off balance and easily knock him to the ground.
No. 7 overall pick Latham, who has shown promise as a pass-blocker after a rough first game, got his hands inside McDonald’s pads and stymied the bull rush attempt.
McDonald had one or two decent reps against each player, but overall, they kept him in check without working too hard.
Despite McDonald’s excellent pressure rate, his 9.3% pass rush win rate ranks just 51st out of 85 qualified edge rushers (min. 40 pass rush snaps). He was far better as a rookie at 16%, which was an elite mark for a rookie.
Best pass-rush win rates by rookie EDGE since '06 (per PFF, min. 100 pass snaps)
1. James Houston ('22): 19.3%
2. Josh Uche ('20): 18.5%
3. Aldon Smith ('11): 17.9%
4. Joey Bosa ('16): 17.0%
5. Carl Lawson ('17): 16.7%
6. Will Anderson ('23): 16.1%
7. Will McDonald ('23): 16.0%— Michael Nania (@Michael_Nania) June 22, 2024
While pass rush win rate is a finicky statistic, it adds some context to McDonald’s pressure and sack numbers.
What matters?
Ultimately, the fact that McDonald has won primarily against lesser tackles isn’t necessarily an issue. After all, Tyron Smith dominated Haason Reddick in two matchups last season. It is a pass rusher’s job to maximize matchup advantages, just as it is a defensive coach’s job to set up his players in a position to succeed. That often means putting the best pass rusher against the weakest link in the opposing team’s offensive line.
McDonald has split his time virtually evenly on the left and right sides of the defensive line so far this season. It would do the Jets well to play him more often against the weaker tackle.
For example, the Jets will face Denver with left tackle Garett Bolles and right tackle Alex Palczewski. Bolles is a former first-round pick and was a second-team All-Pro in 2020; he has a career 4.8% pressure rate, significantly better than the 6.2% tackle average last season. Palczewski is a 2023 undrafted free agent making his third NFL start.
Although Palczewski’s numbers through two games (4.3% pressure rate) are far better than Bolles’ in three games (7.2%), if the Jets have a choice, they should line McDonald up on Palczewski. Going against the right tackle seems to be his more comfortable side, anyway, and going against a former UDFA could be just what McDonald needs to continue his early hot streak.
That being said, McDonald does need to prove he can beat better tackles. The Vikings have an excellent tackle duo in Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill. With significant improvements from Spencer Brown in the early going, the Bills may have their own one-two punch together with Dion Dawkins. Those are the Jets’ next two games after Denver.
To be able to win consistently, McDonald will need to work on the specific issues that show up repeatedly on his film. If they’re noticeable to an outsider, tackles certainly know what they’re facing.
McDonald has shown flashes of better power, but if he continues to struggle with contact and ride himself out of plays, tackles will be able to sit on his spin move and trust themselves to ride him up the arc otherwise.
Run defense
Through three games, McDonald has played just 34 of his 100 snaps against the run (34%). However, that number may be misleading due to the heavy run script in the 49ers game and the heavy pass script in the Patriots game. His Tennessee split of 21 pass/14 rush (54%/46%) may be more accurate, especially with Jermaine Johnson out for the season.
The Jets had hoped to slide McDonald into the Huff pass rush specialist role. Huff played just 27.9% of his snaps against the run in 2023, the lowest among qualified edge rushers (for reference, he’s at 40% this season). With Haason Reddick holding out and Johnson gone, the Jets will be forced to play McDonald on far more rushing downs than they would like.
McDonald’s run defense is a significant issue. He currently has a 29.2 Pro Football Focus run defense grade, ranking 82nd out of 83 qualified edge rushers (min. 30 run defense snaps). While the sample size is small (34 snaps), there is a reason for concern.
McDonald’s lack of power is definitely an issue in the run game. However, the biggest problem he exhibits is poor awareness. He cannot parse through the offense’s early blocking signals to figure out what’s coming. Therefore, he is susceptible to pullers, crack blockers, and down blockers.
At this point, McDonald’s weight and strength are what they are. But he needs to do a tremendous amount of work on his run game recognition. In the split second after the snap, seeing the type of block that is coming allows the defender to prepare for it and gain proper leverage. McDonald rarely shows that ability.
Jets will take it however they can get it
Regardless of whether McDonald is objectively becoming a great edge rusher, the Jets will take pass rush production however they can get it. Again New England, they generated it via the blitz. Against Tennessee, they took advantage of Levis’ tendency to hold the ball too long.
Still, with the Jets’ other edge rushers showing nothing, it will be critical for McDonald to continue to rack up numbers and affect the quarterback more consistently. As long as Reddick is not with the Jets, their edge rush is objectively subpar. McDonald is their only realistic chance to change that.
