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At Minnesota, Wilson was a two-year starter and an extremely productive linebacker for the Gophers defense. In 26 career games, 24 starts, the 22-year-old racked up some gaudy numbers for Minnesota.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Wilson as a prospect was his size. In a league where undersized linebackers have become the new trend because of their athleticism and ability to keep up with the spread and uptempo offense permeating the NFL, Wilson has great size without sacrificing much athletically.
Wilson measures in at 6'0" and 245 pounds with 33.75-inch arms and tests into the 54.9 percentile athletically among off-ball linebackers in the NFL, per 3SigmaAthlete.com's Zach Whitman.
To get a visual representation of Wilson's measurables, take a look at this spider graph comparing Wilson with all the linebackers drafted since 1999, via MockDraftable.com:
Wilson's athleticism is prevalent in his ability to flow to the ball-carrier when it is outside of his gap responsibility. Furthermore, Wilson uses his length extremely well to keep angle blocks off his body, which allows him to continue flowing to the ball without getting hung up on blocks.
Here is a very good example of Wilson's length and athleticism:
Wilson (No. 5) is lined up as the middle linebacker to the right of the hash mark. At the snap, Wilson reads the steps of the weak-side guard and starts to flow downhill toward the strong side of the offense. As Wilson flows to the ball, he maintains inside leverage in case of a cutback from the Northwestern running back. Wilson engages the offensive lineman with his right hand and extends his arm so that the lineman can't adequately engage Wilson. This allows him to continue to flow to the ball and make the tackle before it turned into a big gain.
One of the overarching traits that many evaluators mention with regard to linebackers is whether they have good instincts or not. However, instincts doesn't adequately represent what a linebacker has to do to get to the ball-carrier on a consistent basis.
In reality, a linebacker needs to process a ton of information quickly, so that he can figure out where the ball is going so he can get there in a timely manner. To do this, a linebacker must read his keys so that he can diagnose where the play is designed to go. Usually, a linebacker uses a triangle read, which means he reads through guard's movement to the running back's movement in the backfield to get a picture of where the play is designed to go.
When a linebacker is good at reading his keys and diagnosing a play, it allows him to play fast and not take wasted steps. If a linebacker is bad, they look slow or labored, which causes them to be late to the play and get engulfed by offensive linemen at the second level. That is an aspect that Wilson does well in as evidenced by the play above.
If you were to characterize Wilson as a linebacker in a couple of words, you would describe him as a run-and-chase linebacker. These types of linebackers flow to the ball extremely well and attack ball-carriers at angles. They come downhill at a 45-degree angle and play underneath blocks instead of stacking and shedding them at the point of attack.
Conversely, these linebackers struggle against downhill and power running attacks. They struggle to stack and shed blocks at the point of attack. They don't do as well in a lot of traffic and often give ground when trying to get around blocks.
On the Cowboys, Sean Lee is the archetype for the run-and-chase linebacker, while Rolando McClain is more of the stack-and-shed type.
Here is an example of the positives of Wilson being a run-and-chase linebacker:
Wilson is lined up as the middle linebacker with his left foot on the hash mark. At the snap, Wilson does a great job of reading the offensive linemen's zone step to his right. He immediately comes downhill at a 45-degree angle so the he could play underneath any blocks that would come to the second level of the defense. He plays with great inside leverage to defend against the running back's cutback. Then, Wilson fills the gap and makes the tackle at the line of scrimmage.
Notice how Wilson doesn't have to take on any blocks or sort through any traffic. He is allowed to do what he does best, which is to flow to the ball and make a tackle on the ball-carrier.
This isn't to say that Wilson is terrible at getting off blocks. In fact, he does a very good job of dealing with blocks that are coming at him from an angle. However, he does struggle to get off blocks when he has to come downhill instead of at an angle.
Here is an example of Wilson struggling against a downhill rushing attack:
Wilson is lined up as the middle linebacker to the left of the hash mark. After Wilson diagnoses the play, he flows to his right; however, when he engages the left guard on his way to the ball, he fails to set a proper base and use his hands to stack and shed the offensive guard. This allows the guard to knock Wilson back a couple of yards and negate his ability to make a play on the ball before the running back gets a first down.
The bright side is that the reason Wilson struggles to take on blocks that are square to him is not because he is physically can't do it. In reality, it is because of some technical deficiencies that should be able to get cleaned up in the NFL.
Another negative trait that Wilson possesses is that he tends to vacate his run responsibility against misdirection plays.
This play illustrates Wilson's struggles against misdirection:
Wilson is lined up as the middle linebacker with his left foot on the hash mark. Wilson's run-responsibility on this play is the weak-side A-gap; however, when Ohio State's quarterback makes a play fake to the strong side of the formation, Wilson shuffles to his left twice away from his run responsibility. This gives the quarterback a huge running lane, which he turns into a long touchdown run.
Especially against a team like Ohio State, the linebackers have to be extremely patient because of the variety of fakes that the offense uses to fool a defense, just like on that play.
In coverage, Wilson was primarily asked to spot drop and read the quarterback's eyes. In these situations, he showed good spatial awareness and the ability to cut into the quarterback's passing lane. It is still to be determined whether Wilson can play man-coverage or pattern match in zone, because he wasn't asked to do it very much. It is something that the Cowboys will likely look to find out early on in training camp and preseason.
Overall, Wilson is a very good run-and-chase linebacker who is a terrific tackle and currently projects best to the "Will" linebacker position on the Cowboys defense. The Cowboys like to cover their "Will" linebacker by stacking him up behind the under tackle, which helps protect the "Will" from offensive linemen and allows him to flow unimpeded to the ball-carrier, in theory. Wilson is much better when he can play underneath blocks. If you are asking Wilson to take on blocks at the point of attack, you are setting him up to fail right now.
Nevertheless, if Wilson can learn to use his hands and length to take on and dispose of blockers at the point of attack who are square to him, he has the size and athleticism to thrive as a "Mike" or even "Sam" linebacker as well.
Wilson should be able to develop into a quality starter for the Cowboys down the road, which is a great value in the fourth round.
This year, Wilson will likely back up Sean Lee at the "Will" linebacker position primarily and possibly even Rolando McClain at the "Mike" linebacker position in a pinch. Wilson's real impact will come on special teams, where his athleticism and toughness should allow him to make a huge impact.
The Cowboys have proven that improving the depth at linebacker is a huge priority this offseason after they were ravaged with injuries there last season. Wilson is a huge reason why Dallas will be in much better shape if the injury bug hits them again.
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