The New York Jets wrap up their 2021 NFL draft class by adding a defensive tackle with historically great athleticism.
The New York Jets are already stacked with talent on the interior defensive line, but Joe Douglas and company decided that they could not pass up on the athletic tools of Arkansas defensive tackle Jonathan Marshall with the 207th overall pick.
Jonathan Marshall was drafted with pick 207 of round 6 in the 2021 draft class. He scored a 9.99 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 2 out of 1309 DT from 1987 to 2021. https://t.co/pfu75g5vG0 #RAS #Jets pic.twitter.com/GkFWdNU03y
— Kent Lee Platte (@MathBomb) May 1, 2021
Marshall posted a Relative Athletic Score of 9.99, the second-best out of 1,309 defensive tackles that have been tracked since 1987. At 6-foot-3 and 310 pounds, he ran the forty-yard dash in 4.88 seconds.
The Shepherd, Texas native comes into the NFL following his redshirt senior season and will turn 24 years old in September, so he is on the older side.
While Marshall had only 1.5 sacks in his collegiate career, he was actually a lot more disruptive than that number suggests. In 2020, he made noise as both a pass rusher and run defender, ranking seventh among FBS interior defensive linemen with 29 pressures and tying for 12th with 20 run stops.
Marshall joins a highly talented Jets defensive line that already features Quinnen Williams, Sheldon Rankins, John Franklin-Myers, Folorunso Fatukasi, and Nathan Shepherd. As things stand, it seems plausible to think that Marshall will battle with Shepherd and Tanzel Smart for the final spots on the depth chart.
Barring a trade, the Jets have wrapped up their 2021 draft class with 10 selections, including seven on Day 3.
