Young NFL breakout candidates for 2024: Chargers LB Daiyan Henley
Linebacker – Daiyan Henley, Chargers
Unlike some other players on this list, Daiyan Henley did not come into college football with much notoriety, as a two-star quarterback recruit for Nevada back in 2017. Of the five seasons he spent there, he was a primary special teamer the first three, before transitioning from safety/nickel to linebacker in 2020 and breaking out the final year there. He used that momentum to prove himself for one last campaign at Washington State and did so with brilliant success.
Over his final two years in college, he amassed 208 total tackles, 15 of those for loss, four sacks, five passes intercepted and broken up each, along with being involved in another eight takeaways through fumbles. Yet, while I had a massive grade on him and listed him as my 42nd overall prospect, he didn’t get picked for another good 40 spots. Similarly to a Ravens linebacker coming in his second season in Trenton Simpson, this Charger barely saw the field as a rookie, with 53 defensive snaps, while logging the same total (258) on special teams. Of his 16 tackles, ten came on defense. Unfortunately, with them paying for free agent Eric Kendricks and hoping he would help fix another former first-round selection in Kenneth Murray, that staff under Brandon Staley was invested in making that duo work and didn’t allow Henley to see the field on defense until very late, once they had fired the head coach and named the widely unknown Giff Smith as the guy in charge on an interim basis.
The Bolts made a massive splash this offseason when they hired Jim Harbaugh as the new general in town and he brought along old friends along his staff, including his defensive coordinator Jesse Minter from Michigan. A starting spot is definitely not guaranteed for Henley, but I believe his skills will be a welcome addition to how they want to run that unit.
Watching Henley’s final year at Wazzu especially, his ability to deal with blockers is something that had me buying in on him. He could evade opponents without really getting off his path to the ball, packing a sudden dip of the shoulder, yet he also understood when he needed to control his space and would be the one to actively engage contact, with the 33-inch arms to keep his frame clean and deconstruct blocks. He is explosive laterally to scrape over top of traffic or bounce around a double-team as the ball carrier commits to one side. If your defensive ends are supposed to care of contain responsibilities, Henley’s burst makes it nearly impossible for a guard or tackle on the backside to wall him on stuff like wide zone, even as that blocker is allowed to get flat down the line and just get to a spot, having that head-start of knowing where that play is going.
His speed in pursuit across the field or running down plays that do break free for chunks is a massive plus for his team. In tight quarters, he packs the oomph to stop the momentum of ball carriers, yet he can also lasso guys down to the turf when he catches guys on an angle in more extended space. I saw him prove that he’s a super patient tackler in the open field from his rookie tape. Outside of one snap for a kneel down, the first meaningful down he played at the end of L.A.’s week eight game against the Bears, he was one-on-one with rookie running back Roschon Johnson catching a little hook dump-off, squared him up, and brought him down for no extra yardage without another back-seven defender within 20 yards of them. On the very next play, he cleaned up for one of his teammates missing a tackle in the flats. Altogether, he didn’t miss any of the 16 tackles he attempted on either defense or special teams.
While one of Henley’s strengths in college was his presence in coverage, by NFL standards, his feel for spacing is still something that is being developed, not just dropping to a spot and being locked in on the quarterback, instead of adjusting his width and depth accordingly to the distribution of targets by the offense. Now, you’re not going to hit a little hook or stick routes targeting him in the quick game. And I believe this negative point I just made is largely based on a lack of live reps. As he gets more time with the first time and can decipher route patterns, his combination of range and length will be a major benefit to the Chargers D. That enables DC Jesse Minter to use the second-year linebacker in mugged-up looks and get to his spots before quarterbacks can take advantage of that free space.
I saw him follow tight ends into the slot and impede their progress from press alignments and even when he had to wait for running backs to release into the pattern, one of the best qualities on Henley’s college tape was the tightness at changing directions to mirror those guys when the coverage scheme asks him to match. Based on the tiny sample size we currently have, across 33 snaps in coverage, he held quarterbacks targeting him to five completions for 20 yards on seven targets (for a passer rating of 74.1). Now, he will get a little overzealous shooting out into the flats when the back is flanked that way, but he did show the quick burst to not get walled off by a slant from the outside that is supposed to act as a slight rub and even when he’s seemingly overrun the target, him being able to able sling himself around and lasso down that guy.
I have no idea what the Chargers were doing late in the season when Henley did see some action in weeks 17 and 18 after missing a little time with a hamstring injury, he was then subbed off fairly quickly again for veteran Nick Niemann, who will be entering the final year of his rookie deal and had barely been used prior himself as a former sixth-rounder. Maybe they didn’t want to risk the chance of injury, but I thought they passed over the opportunity for a young player to gain some experience in live action. Projecting what the structure of the Chargers' defense now under new their coordinator will look like, I would point to what the Ravens were doing under Mike Macdonald last season, who Minter ended up taking over for with the Wolverines.
That means we’ll see them rotate the defensive line a lot to keep those bodies fresh, a fairly large variety of coverages, which they find ways to disguise pre-snap, and a lot of simulated pressures, which they use their linebackers as movable pieces on. Obviously, in them bringing over Junior Colson as the green-dot of that Michigan D as a mid-day two selection, they’ll prioritize plugging him right back into the middle of that unit with his understanding of that system, but I would think the utility of a player like Henley beats out Denzel Perryman and Niemann.