Falcons Draft Profile Myles Murphy: Strengths, weaknesses, highlights, prediction
Strengths and weaknesses
Strengths:
Myles Murphy is an excellent athlete for his size. He is a former five-star recruit who can get off the line in a flash and excels at making quick moves to the inside. Often times he gets inside his blocker so quickly that the blocker doesn't even know what happened.
Murphy is a versatile edge rusher who can line up inside or even drop into coverage, although, much like Tyree Wilson, sending him out to cover is not the best use of his talents. At Clemson, he also found a lot of success running T/E stunts as he was able to use his athleticism to find the holes inside.
Beyond that, he flashes elite power, powerful hands, and solid quickness. He isn't quite as explosive as a guy like Tyree Wilson but he has more than enough to make an impact in the NFL.
There are those players who make just make hard tackles and he is one of them. He uses his size to put a lick on the passer, although after we saw that Grady Jarrett sack on Tom Brady, is that a positive?
There was one play in particular against NC State (who was ranked tenth in the nation) where Murphy threw their six-foot-six, 335-pound tackle to the ground with one arm, then used his bend and speed to beat him later. Throwing a 335-pound human being with one arm is not normal, in case you didn't know.
Weaknesses:
One of the first things that stick out about Myles Murphy is that he routinely guesses wrong when diagnosing between a running play or a play-action fake. It is something that needs to be worked on a lot in the NFL, and it all starts with his eyes.
With that, the angles he takes to make tackles leave a lot to be desired and he needs to have a better plan as a run defender. Then there are times when he just jogs while others make tackles instead of helping out his teammates. Attrition or not, you would like to see him get in on more tackles.
Murphy can take too wide of rushes and slide right past the quarterback which runs him right out of the play. NFL tackles will gladly allow him to the outside if he continues to wash himself out. He will occasionally allow blockers to get their hands inside his body which puts him in a bad situation—it most commonly occurs when Murphy is lined up inside. Myles also has trouble getting his hips to flex around those tight corners.
And, finally, he never had a dominant season at Clemson like you would have thought from a five-star recruit. He had a career-best eight sacks as a sophomore, but he was able to produce a lot of tackles for loss.
Summary:
Overall, Myles Murphy is an extremely talented player who should be considered by teams in the top 15. He has all the skills it takes it to be a great player in the league, in both the passing game and the running game, he just needs to clean some things up, particularly when diagnosing run or pass.