What does DE Shaka Toney bring to the Washington Football Team?

What is Washington getting in its seventh-round pick?

With the second of its three seventh-round picks, the Washington Football Team drafted defensive end Shaka Toney out of Penn State. Toney will join fellow seventh-round pick William Bradley-King, and last year’s seventh-round pick James Smith-Williams, in competing for a roster spot as a back up pass rusher. Toney might well be the best pure pass rusher of the three of them, but he’s also the smallest. Toney stands at 6-foot-2, 242 pounds, which is very small for a 4-3 defensive end. However, he offers tremendous explosive traits including a strong get off and the ability to dip and bend around the edge. 

That speed and quickness is something that stands out immediately when watching Toney. He was able to consistently generate pressure off the edge against tackles that failed to cut him off and negate his speed rush outside.

On this play, Toney works against the Indiana left tackle. His burst off the line is clear to see as he quickly gets hip level with the tackle, who abandons his technique as he tries to keep up. Toney simply beats him to the edge and manages to dip and bend around the corner as the tackle can only get hands on his inside shoulder. From there, Toney closes quickly on the quarterback for a sack.

The speed and explosiveness is a huge asset for Toney, but he’s not just a one trick pony. He has some technical ability to, using his hands to beat blockers as well as his athleticism.

Like before, Toney works against the Indiana left tackle. He gets a solid jump off the snap, but this time the tackle gets out of his stance quicker to try and cut him off. Toney responds with a strong jab of his inside arm to the inside shoulder of the tackle. With the hand placed well, Toney extends and locks out his arm, keeping himself clean in the process. Instead of transitioning into a long-arm rush, however, Toney continues his work outside. He swipes down with his outside arm, clearing the outside arm of the tackle that was cutting him off. With the path now clear to the edge, Toney rips his inside arm down, pulling the tackle off balance as he bends around the edge for the sack.

That’s a highly technical sack with a lot of difficult parts to pull off. Combining good hand usage with great speed and burst is a good start for Toney. However, those hands need to be good because of his size. He doesn’t have the strength to overpower or drive back blockers with a bull rush or long-arm rush. He has to win with his speed and crucially, his hands, if he’s to have success at the NFL level. If he fails to keep himself clean, he will struggle to make an impact.

In the Ohio State game this season, where Toney faced better athletes that could cut off his speed, he needed to rely more on his hands. That is where I saw some issues creep up for Toney, if he failed to clear the tackle’s hands, then he struggled. This is one example of that. Toney works against the Ohio State left tackle here and actually does well initially. He gets off the line quickly and gets the left tackle turned around early on in the rep. However, the left tackle manages to land his left hand on Toney’s inside shoulder and Toney fails to clear it. That allows the tackle to stick on the block and run Toney by the quarterback, despite initially winning the rep.

This happened a couple of times in the game too.

This time Toney works against the right tackle. The tackle gets out of his stance quickly and looks to engage early in the rep to disrupt Toney’s speed. Toney tries to swipe up with his inside arm, but doesn’t get enough power or contact behind it, failing to knock away the tackle’s hands. The tackle is able to lean into him and land his outside hand on Toney’s chest, which cuts off the outside rush completely. Toney attempts to disengage, shoving the tackle to try and create some space for a swipe, but the swipe doesn’t connect and the tackle has the block under control well after the ball is thrown. 

Clearing hands is important for the vast majority of pass rushers in the NFL. Not many rushers can beat a tackle that is bigger and stronger than them if that tackle gets their hands on them. For Toney, that is especially true as he’s undersized. However, even in that Ohio State game, there were examples of Toney learning from his mistakes and finding a way to clear the hands of the tackle and generate pressure.

Once again we see Toney working against the Ohio State right tackle here. This time, Toney is more proactive with his hands. He reaches out with his inside hand and actually catches the inside hand of the tackle as he does so. That enables Toney to prevent the tackle from getting his inside hand on him. As the tackle goes to place his outside hand, Toney drops his inside hand and uses a rip move, ripping through to clear the outside hand of the tackle and giving Toney a path to the edge. The tackle goes into desperation mode as he gets completely turned around trying to adjust while Toney bends around the edge, but the quarterback manages to bail him out by getting rid of the ball quickly. 

As a run defender, Toney’s size is an issue, at 242 pounds, he can struggle to defeat blocks in the run game. There were a few times when I watched him that tight ends were able to knock him back off the ball. In some cases, teams used two tight end sets against him and the double team would result in him being moved out of his gap considerably.

Here we see Toney working against a tight end double team from Ohio State. He reads the double team early and tries to go down to one knee to help him absorb the contact, something Washington defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne have had success doing in the past. However, before he gets down to one knee, he gets knocked back by the inside tight end before the outside tight end shoves him back further. Toney has to spin out of the block completely to escape it, but that leaves him way outside of his gap and frees up both tight ends to work up to other blocks. 

But while Toney can be overpowered in the run game, he does appear to read it well and understand how to fit up different types of plays.

On this play against Nebraska, Toney works as the edge defender outside the tight end to the left of the offensive formation. Nebraska tasks the tight end with blocking Toney while the left guard pulls around to the edge as a lead blocker for the back. However, Toney does a nice job standing up the tight end initially while positioning himself with outside leverage to set the edge. He then spots the guard pulling outside and gets upfield to disrupt the path of the guard. The guard crashes into him and knocks him back, but Toney still manages to establish the edge and force the run back inside to the rest of the defense. 

He shows a good understanding for moving blockers in the run game and how to attack those blocks to help fit the run best.

This is an RPO from the Ohio State offense that ends up in a pass outside, but pay attention to how Toney fits the run, because the ball could easily have been handed off here too. It’s an inside zone run from Ohio State with the tight end sifting back across the line to kick out Toney and create a lane for the running back to cut back into. Toney, however, quickly recognises he’s unblocked and shuffled down the line to squeeze the gap shut as he diagnoses the play. He then spots the tight end sifting back across the line to kick him out and smartly attacks his inside shoulder to beat the block inside. He positioned himself perfectly to make the tackle on the running back, had the ball been handed off instead of thrown on the RPO.

Washington Defensive Coordinator Jack Del Rio has already confirmed that Toney will be cross trained at both defensive end and linebacker. It’s possible that Washington feels Toney is too light to survive as a base 4-3 defensive end, especially in the run game. So a potential role for Toney could be to play some linebacker on early downs and then either switch to a rush end or walk up on the line of scrimmage in obvious passing situations. There’s clearly plenty of talent with the speed and explosiveness Toney has to offer, and the hand usage is solid but can improve too. Those traits make him a prospect worth spending time to develop because there’s upside that could become a significant contribution if handled correctly.