Devin Lloyd profile: Why the Jacksonville Jaguars drafted the LB in the 2022 NFL Draft
The Jacksonville Jaguars picked Devin Lloyd with the 27th pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
Devin Lloyd stands at 6’3” and weighs in at 235 pounds. Just a three-star recruit as a safety back in 2017, Lloyd barely saw any playing time in his first year on campus.
Over his next 19 games as a starter, he amassed 139 tackles, 21 for loss, 8.5 sacks, two pass breakups, and a pick-six before becoming a big-play machine for the Utes in 2021.
He routinely came up big in their most crucial games, like a pick-six in the Pac-12 title game against Oregon, to score 14-0 and set the tone (one of his two return TDs on the year). He ended his first-team All-American season with 111 total tackles, 22 of those for loss, seven sacks, four interceptions, and six more PBUs.
Devin Lloyd's strengths
Lloyd is very light on his lateral movement and super shifty with the way he can work around blockers while also having the short-area burst to shoot through gaps and chop down ball carriers in the backfield.
He doesn’t shy away from going through one half of a lineman trying to get up to him, either. You often see him come down on pulling linemen and make them miss entirely, standing right there in the gap and taking on the ball carrier.
In 2021, Lloyd improved a lot in his ability to read his keys in-between the tackles while showing some patience and his angles out to the sideline.
Yet when he can’t avoid contact, he’s usually the first to initiate it, with 33-inch arms to keep his chest clean. Even when he gets banged from the side, he can keep his footing momentarily and dive at the legs of the back to trip him up.
"Explosive hitting power" are the words that come to mind with Lloyd; he doesn’t need much room to build it up initially. Yet, while he has chased players down out wide and can only get a piece of the ball carrier, he will not let go of his leg before allowing his teammates to join the party.
Lloyd has the burst to come off the edge or wrap around behind a combo and track running backs down from behind. He also puts his flat-out speed on display to chase down opponents who manage to clear the second level ahead of him.
Lloyd is pretty loose in his lower body to float around in coverage. He can cover plenty of ground in his back-pedal and then flip open as he sees a receiver in his area breaking either way, or turn to get underneath somebody running down the hashes.
In a couple of excellent plays on tape, he broke up shots down the seams. Lloyd has that explosiveness to widen his drop one way and then get underneath somebody, breaking the direction behind him.
He shows good awareness for targets in space and doesn’t allow free access to his area while being able to elude guys who have their back to him and getting his hands on the ball.
It doesn’t look like Lloyd is straining when trailing back into the flats. Looking at his interceptions from this past season, he can make some outstanding catches, jumping up for passes at the line or tipping it to himself.
Lloyd has the athletic ability to track down scrambling quarterbacks who have space to operate. He gets involved quite a bit as a blitzer, banging into big bodies if he has to, winning with sudden hand swipes, and coming on delayed rushes as an off-ball player when he sees an opening.
You see him get around backs by giving them a little shake and side-stepping them. Lloyd lined up on edge for extended stretches and showed the ability to stress tackles with his upfield burst, leaving his feet to pivot his hips and flatten towards the quarterback, landing wicked spin moves. He came up with back-to-back sacks in the Arizona State game of 2021 to close out the win.
Devin Lloyd's weaknesses
Lloyd doesn’t have the sturdiness to stack-and-shed blockers when they can work up into his frame. He gets his shoulders turned too quickly on lateral run schemes and gives up some cutback lanes or has to redirect sharply against end-arounds, where his long legs limit his ability to change directions rapidly.
That can also be an issue projecting him forward to a scheme where he has to stick with somebody in man-coverage through multiple breaks, which he wasn’t asked to do.
Lloyd can get sucked in pretty deep by play-action and surrender completions in that voided area, with the ball going over his head. Seeing him run in the mid-4.6s at the combine was rather disappointing.
Conclusion on Devin Lloyd
This young man, who has a knack for football, made many big plays when his team needed him most last season. In the two games against their most significant threat for the Pac-12 in Oregon, Lloyd set the tone with some big hits on the run and then had a pick-six early to start the blowout in the conference title game.
His rather lanky build may not be ideal for playing in-between the guards, and he can get too aggressive flowing with the run, but he can avoid blockers very effectively. He’s an explosive hitter and can be utilized as a versatile rusher on passing downs.
Follow all the updates from Day 1 of NFL Draft 2022 on Sportskeeda's live blog
For more draft prospect breakdowns, positional rankings, and much more, head over to my page halilsrealfootballtalk.com and follow me on social media!