Among the class of linebackers that are coming out this year in the draft, there are some entertaining players, though the only top-tier standout is Isaiah Simmons. That is unsurprising given he does so much that he is a perfect fit for the modern-day NFL. Then, you have guys like Patrick Queen and an NFL Combine standout in Kenneth Murray. After that, it is just a drop off from there with a bunch of guys bunched together. But a guy who has received a lot of hype recently is Jordyn Brooks, a linebacker out of Texas Tech.
Let me start with the compelling reasons you love Brooks on tape because there are a lot of them. The tape shows an uber-productive linebacker that flies around the field at will. Whether that be in run defense or as a blitzer, it always seems like Brooks has that knack to be around the football making plays for the Red Raiders defense. Even on his worst days, Brooks made plays that impacted the game.
It was never always a big thing. Something that he was asked to do a lot against mobile quarterbacks was to be put in a spy. But even when those quarterbacks did not take off, Brooks was doing his best to make a play any way he could. He was a spy here, but he does a great job of reading Charlie Brewer, getting his hands up, and knocking down this pass. These are the little things, but it is still so important to see on defense.
Brooks is an incredibly rangy and explosive linebacker. Here he is on a designed blitz trying to come in and crash on the guard, but Brewer steps up in the pocket and evades the pressure off the edge. That makes it that much more impressive that Brooks turns around and chases him down with ease on a great angle. This is a legitimate sideline-to-sideline range from him. So he has the athleticism needed for the modern NFL at the second level. More importantly, he knows how to find the ball.
A lot of coaches use the saying ‘see ball, get ball,’ and Brooks is precisely that type of linebacker. Once he sees where the ball is going, he will fly around the field. He plays fast, but not reckless and has excellent gap discipline and patience to read the play and make sure he is not vacating an open spot in the defensive scheme. For a linebacker prospect, that is not always something you see, but it shows that Brooks is polished on the mental side of things. There is no better attribute for Brooks than gap shooting anyways to take advantage of his above-average athleticism.
This is where we start getting into troubling waters for Brooks. I do want to like his downhill style, but at Texas Tech, he was rarely tested at the point of attack to take on blockers. Even at the second level, he rarely had to engage a blocker, extend, stack, and then shed to make a tackle. The more concerning thing, however, is on reps he did have to do that, he got entirely washed out of his gap. His hands seemingly just die out. Here he gets lucky that the lineman is essentially hugging him with horrific hand placement so he can just rip through and make the tackle, but even still, he gets washed a bit out of his gap. At the NFL level, he will not see guys who get this wide with their hands very often.
It is on a quarterback sneak, but Brooks gets blown out of the house on this play. He has to clog up some room at least here, but he just gets blown off the ball, trying to engage down at the line of scrimmage. Any play you end up on your back is never a good play, and this is something Brooks has to work on. He is simply too high to even get any momentum going right on contact.
This one is a little weird to me. He is doing a good job at setting the edge because that his job here, but you still have to be in a position to shed the block. Brooks instead gets walked back with less than active hands and strength once engaged here by the tackle. The tackle’s hands are inside his shoulder pads, and as a defender, that is never a good thing. You would love to see him get more extension here and be in a position to rip through.
Jordyn Brooks is a linebacker that fascinates me. In coverage, he is unproven. He can be useful in short area zones, but dropping back into the middle of the field or having to man up anyone is a very foreign concept for him. There is just not of stuff on tape that you would love to see. The fact that he played so often without having to be tested on shedding blocks is a concern. Coverage ability is very questionable even with the athleticism to do it.
So, Brooks is somewhat of a rawer linebacker than I expected to going into his evaluation. There are plays where he looks the part of his Top-50 hype, but there are others where I would say that is far too rich. My feelings on him are a mixed bag, and I can comfortably say that a team is going to have to put in some work to develop and utilize his full skill-set.