a liability in the run game,<\/a> where tackles and tight ends pushed him around with ease.<\/p>\nMcDonald finished the year with a 39.5 run defense grade at Pro Football Focus, ranked last among 105 qualified edge rushers (min. 300 snaps). He also ranked last with a 1.3-to-1 ratio of run stops to missed tackles (position average: 3.9-to-1).<\/p>\n
A bulkier frame would improve McDonald\u2019s ability to hold his ground on the edge. Glenn touched on this in his press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The weight gain] is very good for him, because it allows him to be able to set an edge a lot better,\u201d Glenn said.<\/p>\n
While the Jets\u2019 first-year head coach acknowledged McDonald\u2019s room for improvement as a run defender, he raved about the Iowa State product\u2019s pass-rush skill set.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has really long arms. Again, I already said it, but [a] dynamic athlete. He is a guy that has a skill set as far as rushing the passer that, I haven\u2019t been around a lot of guys just in my coaching tenure like what we have with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to enjoy seeing exactly what he\u2019s going to be able to do with us. And we\u2019re going to let him go. We\u2019re going to let him loose. We\u2019re going to let him go get the passer. That\u2019s what he does best. So, I\u2019m just looking forward to when he gets the pads on, and when you can just put him in live action, see what he can really do.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDonald concluded his second NFL season with 61 total pressures (T-13th among EDGE) and 10.5 sacks (T-11th). He was one of just seven edge rushers to post 60+ total pressures and 10+ sacks:<\/p>\n
Myles Garrett<\/p>\n
Will McDonald<\/p>\n
Micah Parsons<\/p>\n
Danielle Hunter<\/p>\n
Jonathon Cooper<\/p>\n
Trey Hendrickson<\/p>\n
Jonathan Greenard<\/p>\n
In his third season, McDonald aims to join the NFL\u2019s top tier as a pass rusher while bringing his run defense up to at least a competent level. The latter will be much more achievable with his bulked-up frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New year, new Will McDonald. A fresh jersey number is not the only change for the New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[7,226,1917,255,2321,2097,6,4098,20939],"class_list":{"0":"post-68891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-jets","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkjets","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-ny-jets","16":"tag-will-mcdonald-weight"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114548701980868793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}