Chase Young is starting to reach his elite potential

Breaking down the performance and development of Commanders DE Chase Young

Commanders defensive end Chase Young entered this season facing a lot of uncertainty. The Commanders declined his fifth-year option, meaning Young is now in the final year of his contract and is set to become a free agent after this season. He also had the pressure of coming back from his horrific knee injury suffered in 2021 which kept him out for most of the 2022 season. Nobody was sure if Young could fully overcome that injury and return to the generational talent that was drafted second overall in 2020 and went on to win defensive rookie of the year. 

Despite all that uncertainty about his future, Young has knuckled down and is putting together an incredibly promising season so far. He’s fully back from his horrific knee injury that disrupted his early career development and is now starting to reach his elite potential. He’s up to five sacks on the season to date and has been a constant threat to opposing offenses, consistently generating pressure and hurrying opposing quarterbacks. Those pressures don’t always show up as sacks in the stat column, but they are significant. 

So how has Chase Young put aside all the uncertainty regarding his future and taken significant strides forward to develop from raw athletic talent into a consistent high level pass rusher? Let’s take a closer look.

The first thing that has been obvious with Young this season is that he has his explosiveness back. There were flashes of this at the end of last season when he returned to action, but you could also see some tentativeness in fully trusting his knee when rushing. That tentativeness is gone and now he’s back to just playing with a free mind, not worried about the knee. Because of that, his explosive speed and burst of the edge is back and a significant threat to left tackles across the league. 

This clips shows a couple of examples of Young’s speed and explosion off the edge this season. The first clip comes from the most recent game against the Giants and is perhaps the best example. You can see how well he times the snap and is the first player out of his stance as the ball is being snapped. Combining a good jump of the snap with his natural athletic ability enables Young to burst up the field quickly, causing the Giants left tackle to panic and abandon his technique. By his third step, Young is already hip level with the left tackle, who has had to completely flip his hip around to try and catch up with Young. Young is then able to simply dip and turn the corner before closing in on the quarterback for the sack. 

But that speed isn’t just a one off. As the clip goes on to show, Young has challenged multiple left tackles with his speed and explosiveness off the edge. Not many left tackles are as athletic as Young, which makes it incredibly hard for them to match and cut off that speed to the edge. Some tackles will be so concerned with that speed that they end up oversetting to the edge to try and cut it off, leaving a big gap inside. What Young has done a really good job of this season is taking advantage of tackles that overset to match his speed. 

On each of the plays in this clip, you’ll see the left tackle oversetting to the edge to try and get their hands on Young early and cut off his speed rush. In the past, Young would often be surprised by this and not have a back up plan, but this year he’s done a great job of recognizing when a tackle is oversetting and adjusting his rush to work inside to take advantage of that. On the first play of this clip, you can see Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins get out of his stance quickly, leaving a big gap inside. Young reads that and adjusts his path to dip inside. Dawkins struggles to adjust and Young breaks through and generates a huge amount of pressure on quarterback Josh Allen, who is forced to throw the ball away out the back of the end zone. 

On the second play of the clip we see Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata trying to quick-set Young off a play-action pass. Young again reads the set from the tackle and understands the space is now inside. He quickly dips inside with a swim move that helps him beat Mailata and generate pressure on Jalen Hurts. As soon as Hurts finishes the play-action fake and turns around, he’s pressured by Young and is flushed out of the pocket as he scrambles to avoid the sack. 

The third play of the clip shows Young getting inside against Broncos left tackle Garett Bolles and flushing Russell Wilson out of the pocket, leading to Jamin Davis chasing Wilson down and creating the game changing fumble. The fourth and final play of the clip comes from this past Sunday against the Giants. With the left tackle so concerned about Young’s speed, he oversets to the edge and Young again dips inside. The tackle has no choice but to essentially bring Young to the ground on what was a clear penalty.

Young now has the ability to threaten both sides of the tackle. He has the speed to threaten the edge but also the ability to dip back inside when a tackle oversets to try and counter that speed. That makes things incredibly hard for opposing tackles trying to block him because they feel vulnerable to both shoulders. What then ends up happening is they take more vertical drops to try and deal with the speed without leaving a big gap inside. When that happens, Young has a third move that he’s introduced a lot more frequently this season. 

This type of rush is something we’ve seen far more frequently from Young this season than we ever did in the past. In this clip we see a few examples of Young using a bull rush, converting his speed on the edge into power. With the left tackles setting back tentatively, unsure of which way Young will go, Young is able to attack that tentativeness. He attacks the chest of the blocker by getting his hands inside, which enables him to transfer the momentum gained from his burst off the edge into power that drives the tackle back towards the quarterback. Dawkins and Mailata are both big tackles. Dawkins is listed at 320 pounds, Mailata is listed at 365 pounds. Young is only listed at 264, but he’s still able to drive those bigger bodies backwards and generate pressure with his bull rushes. 

By adding these different methods to his game, Young has diversified the ways in which he can beat a tackle. In his rookie year, Young relied too much on just his speed and athleticism on the edge or his favorite stutter move, but they became predictable and tackles learned how to counter that. Now, Young has multiple ways of beating a tackle, meaning they can’t just focus in on one or two moves. That in turn increases the effectiveness of each move, including the rushes that used to get him in trouble. 

Now if you’ve read any of my previous articles on Chase Young, you’ll know that I wasn’t a fan of his stutter step move, which has always been a favorite of his. The stutter move is one that Young uses with the intent to get the tackle to stop his feet and create a disconnect between the tackle’s hands and feet, allowing Young to then either fire his hands and win leverage or burst outside faster than the tackle can restart his feet. It’s a move that definitely has its place as part of an arsenal of moves, but Young used to go to it far too often. Tackles could then anticipate it and use it against him to shut him down. 

But now, Young has a lot more variety in his pass rush as we’ve established. That means he can now weave in his stutter move less frequently and see it become much more effective. As we can see in the clip above, Young uses the stutter move to get Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata to stop his feet and hands. Mailata is an athletic tackle, but it’s hard for any tackle to stop and start their feet again and Young is able to dip low and burst past him on his way to a sack.

On the second play of the clip, we see Young use the stutter against Falcons left tackle Jake Matthews. By getting Matthews to pause, Young can throw his inside hand and land a punch to Matthews chest before suddenly bursting outside again. Matthews is left almost stunned by the combination and tries to cut off Young with his outside arm, but Young simply swats that aside and turns the corner, generating significant pressure on what was just a simple three step drop. 

Another area Young has shown some growth this season is his hand fighting. Now this is still something he can improve on and I suspect he will as he gets older, but we’re seeing more and more flashes of him using swipes, clubs and even cross-chops to help him clear the hands of the tackle and allow him to rush to the edge freely. 

On the first play of this clip, we see Young use a chop with his outside hand on the outside hand of the Bears left tackle. He swipes down and across with the chop, catching the wrist of the tackle’s outside arm. This forces the arm down and inside, preventing the tackle from being able to cut off Young’s rush to the edge. Young then is able to freely attack the edge and pressure the quarterback. 

The second play of the clip shows a different technique from Young. His intent is still to chop that outside arm of the tackle to prevent the tackle from cutting off his rush to the edge, but he does so differently than we saw in the first clip. This time, Young uses a cross-chop technique. He takes his inside arm and chops across the body of the tackle, aiming to hit that outside arm. It’s a tough technique to master and something Jonathan Allen does very well. Young doesn’t quite get it right here, but importantly he’s able to adapt. The cross chop doesn’t quite manage to knock the outside arm down, but the tackle had to raise that hand up to avoid the move. Young quickly adjusts by following up with his outside hand to club that high hand and pin it inside. Young then brings his inside arm back into the equation by using it to rip upwards and turn the corner. The tackle has now way of cutting him off and Young is able to close on the quarterback. 

All of this adds up to Young developing into one of the best young pass rushers in the NFL. He’s causing every tackle he faces a lot of issues and opposing teams are taking notice. With how much of a threat Young is developing into, opposing teams are having to game plan around him, sending as much help as they can to the left tackle in order to keep Young in check. Young has this gravity about him now that forces extra protection to slide his way, which helps the rest of the defense and opens up lots of opportunities for his teammates. 

This clips shows multiple examples of the gravity Chase Young has now. The first play of the clip shows how Young beats the left tackle so quickly that the left guard is forced to peel off his double team on Jonathan Allen to bail out the tackle while the running back has to come across to help out as well. With three guys accounting for Young, Montez Sweat is left one-on-one against a tight end on the other side of the line. That also means that two of the five eligible receivers are staying in to help protect, meaning the secondary only has to account for three receivers.

On the second play of the clip, we again see the offense doing what it can to help handle Young. The Broncos slide their line to the left to try and pick up both Jon Allen and Young. The running back stays in to help on Young too, leaving Sweat facing two tight ends and Daron Payne left one-on-one against the right tackle, a matchup that Payne wins on his way to a sack. 

The Bills kept their running back in to help their left tackle handle Young on the third play of the clip. The back doesn’t even hide his intention, taking an unusual position pre-snap to give himself the best leverage to help against Young. When Young attacks outside and then dips inside, the running back mirrors him. Most backs would give a token attempt to chip and then release into their route, but the back here is clearly tasked with ensuring he gets some sort of chip on Young to provide the left tackle with help, which significantly delays him from getting out into his route. 

The Eagles follow the lead of the Broncos on the final play of the clip. They use a play-action fake to try and slow down the rush while sliding most of the offensive line to the left. They also keep a tight end in to help chip Young, throwing just about everything they can to try and protect against him. This again leaves both Payne and Sweat with one-on-ones on the other side of the line and delays the tight end from getting out into his route.

Young is clearly playing at an extremely high level with the potential to get even better. At 24, he’s still young enough to grow and prove good value over the life of a long term contract extension. The only real doubts I think the Commanders or any team could have with Young is the injury history with that horrific knee injury that really stalled his development. But Young is showing so far this season that he’s fully over that injury and now finally fulfilling the potential he was drafted for. In my opinion, Young has shown he’s capable of reaching an elite level this season and fully merits a long term contract.