Chase Young impressive in return from injury

Breaking down Chase Young’s performance as he returned from over a year out due to injury.

One of the big positives to come out of the Commanders loss to the 49ers this week was the return of star defensive end Chase Young. Young has taken a long time to recover from the knee injury suffered in the middle of last season and while he’s been medically cleared for a few weeks now, it wasn’t until this game that Young was finally ready mentally to fully trust his knee in live action. 

Young was expected to be on a heavy pitch count as he worked his way back onto the field for the first time in over a year. The Commanders expected him to play 12-16 snaps in his first game back, but Young ended up playing 30 in total. Having been medically cleared for a while, the snap count limit was something more likely to be strictly implemented earlier in the season but by this point it was there to help protect Young mentally more than anything. Clearly he started to regain confidence in his knee and waved off the 12-16 snaps. Having watched back all 30 of his snaps, it was clear to see his confidence growing the more snaps he played.

These were Young’s first two reps in the game. He comes across as just a little bit tentative to me in these plays, which I think is to be expected given his situation. The first play of the clip is a run away from Young. Young does his job on the play, holding his gap on the edge against the right tackle, but with the ball going away from him, there’s no huge effort to try and work down the line to make a play. On the second play of the clip, Young again works against the right tackle. The right guard pulls to the left side of the line and the right tackle slides inside to close off the gap. Young again seems just a little tentative. He doesn’t burst down the line, instead he reads the right tackle, engages in a block but doesn’t make a huge effort to get inside and really impact the play.

It’s completely understandable that Young was a little bit tentative early on. It’s not easy to get over the mental hurdle of trusting a part of the body that has failed before, especially with the severity of the knee injury that Young suffered, rather than just a clean ACL tear. But on his third rep, Young was forced into a little bit more of a physical rep.

Young’s third rep came in a third and short situation. The 49ers line up in a run-heavy look with the intent to run up the middle and pick up that first down. Young has to slide inside as part of the defensive look, meaning he’ll be exposed to lots of bodies crashing into each other and potential for his knee to take more contact than it had on the previous two plays. Young is maybe a little bit tentative again off the snap, lowering his head as he attempts to dive inside but lacking the real conviction he played with in the past. But alongside Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen, he manages to help clog the lane up the middle and get the stop. More importantly, he felt heavy contact from all around him and managed to come out of the play absolutely fine. 

That play was likely the one that made things click for Young. Feeling that extra contact in a pressure situation and coming out of it healthy was likely a big boost to his confidence. After that play, he was noticeably more active against the run.

These three plays show Young regaining his confidence after the third and short stop. The first play of the clip is actually the 49ers attempt to convert on fourth and short after being stopped. You can see a clear difference in Young’s mentality. Yes, he is left unblocked on the back side of a run designed to work away from him. But instead of just holding his position, Young shows the desire to make the play from the back side. He sprints down the line and chases the fullback across the field before the ball is eventually pitched to the running back and then stopped by his teammates. 

After that, Young looked a lot more like the player he was before the injury. On the second play of that clip, the 49ers are backed up near their own goal line. Young faces a double team from the right tackle and tight end. In the clips we saw previously, Young was a bit tentative off the snap, but here he shows no such issue. He immediately shoots off the ball and into the right tackle, clogging up the right side while occupying a double team. On the third play of the clip, he reads a run scheme towards him and takes on a fullback before working inside of him and shedding the block to make the tackle for a minimal gain.

These were incredibly encouraging signs for Young. I think the difference in his play in these clips from the first few plays we saw is night and day. It certainly appears as though that third down stop really built his confidence back up in his knee and allowed him to just go and play more freely without having to worry about protecting his knee. Now, there was still one or two plays where he was a little bit more protective of his knee, but they came in understandable situations.

On this play, the 49ers run an inside zone scheme with a tight end sift. Young is left unblocked on the back side of the run with the tight end responsible for sifting back across the line and cutting him off on the back side. We’ve seen numerous players get hurt on this scheme, with tight ends often going too low on their cut blocks and taking out the knee of the defender. So it’s understandable that Young would be more tentative here. I suspect as his confidence in his knee grows over the next few weeks, this scheme won’t be as much of an issue and we’ll see him crash down the line and take on the tight end before he can even execute a cut block. But until that point, keep an eye out for teams running this play at him.

But overall, his confidence in his knee looked largely back to normal, which enabled him to play freely without worrying about how his knee would react. You could see that on a couple of occasions where Young showed outstanding awareness to make plays that he could only make if he was focused on the game rather than his knee.

Here on second and nine, the 49ers align in a two by two formation with the quarterback in the shotgun and the running back beside him to his right. Before the snap, however, the running back is set in motion outside to the left. That leaves the quarterback in an empty backfield, likely eliminating the threat of a run and making the play almost certainly a pass. As the ball is snapped, Young begins his rush up the field and looks to engage with the right tackle, but he also keeps his eyes on the quarterback. He spots the quarterback beginning his throwing motion, so he peels off his block and gets his hand up to tip the pass.

Young explained after the game that once the back motioned out of the backfield, he knew the 49ers were likely passing and with the pass rush threat of the Commanders defensive line, it was likely going to have to be a quick pass. So instead of getting caught up in trying to rush when it was unlikely he’d be able to get to the quarterback in time, he kept his eyes on the quarterback and looked for the throw so he could get his hand up to deflect it. It was a heads up play from Young that showed not only great football awareness, but also that his mind was in the moment rather than on his knee, which is great to see. 

It wasn’t the only time he showed great awareness either.

This time, the 49ers are in the red zone and looking to set up a little screen to running back Christian McCaffrey. Young aligns on McCaffrey’s side, where the screen is being run to and the 49ers are hoping he will rush up the field so they can throw the screen over him. Young initially shows a good burst up the field as he reads McCaffrey setting up to block him. However, he then realizes that it’s not normal for McCaffrey to try and block him, so something must be up. He slows up his rush and looks to stick tight to McCaffrey, recognizing the intent to set up a screen. He stays just close enough to prevent the quarterback from throwing the screen, which allows his teammates to pressure the quarterback and force him to scramble before eventually being forced out of bounds.

Again that awareness shows that Young was no longer concerning himself with the knee, but focused purely on the play at hand, which is great to see. He also showed that the knee could withstand him stopping and starting and changing direction as he adjusted to first rushing and then sinking back with McCaffrey to take away that option. 

But of course, what we all want to see from Chase Young is his ability to rush the passer. With his 30 reps, he wasn’t afforded too many opportunities to really pin his ears back and just rush against a tackle and try to get to the quarterback. The Commanders used plenty of stunts with Young working with the defensive tackle to his side, while the 49ers also had plenty of quicker passes to try and negate the rush talent that the Commanders have. He did have a few reps where he was shut down, but Trent Williams is a fantastic left tackle and shuts down almost everyone that rushes against him. Young did have two very promising reps against Williams worth highlighting. 

Young uses a similar move on both of these rushes and both work nicely against probably the best left tackle in football. On the first play of the clip, Young aligns quite wide outside left tackle Trent Williams. This gives him a better angle to work around the edge. He comes off the snap well and works up the field, forcing Williams to commit to trying to take away his speed to the edge. Williams looks to engage in the block with a strike to Young’s outside shoulder. As soon as Williams raises his hands, Young counters with a side swipe from his left arm that knocks down Williams’s hands to the outside as Young then proceeds to shift inside. The left guard manages to slide across and bail Williams out, slowing down Young enough to allow the quarterback to deliver his throw.

The second play of the clip is a very similar rush from Young. He again takes a wider alignment and bursts up the field to force Williams to commit to cutting off his speed to the edge. Once Young spots Williams raising his hands, he uses that swipe again to knock them away and skip inside. Williams actually gets away with a pretty obvious holding call here as he grabs onto Young’s shoulder pad from the ground and pulls him down. Had he not done that, Young would have almost certainly pressured the quarterback’s throw. He should have gotten the penalty call which would have at least negated the gain on the play, but the ref missed the call here.

Overall it was a very encouraging return for Chase Young in my opinion. We saw him grow in confidence as the game progressed and it was clear to see that his mind was on the play at hand rather than worrying about his knee. His pass rush was still a bit rusty but that is to be expected with the amount of time he’s missed. Those two reps against Trent Williams were excellent and hopefully provide a foundation for him to build off going forward. If he continues to grow in confidence the way he did in this game, he could become a hugely significant addition for the Commanders playoff push in these final two games of the season.