Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
DE set to knock smiles off QBs’ faces
Texas A&M’s Garrett brings mean streak as possible top draft pick
INDIANAPOLIS — Myles Garrett might be a nice guy off the football field.
On it, the Texas A&M defensive end can be as mean and nasty as anyone else whose dream job is dragging pretty-boy quarterbacks through the mud. And the imposing 6-foot-4-inch, 272-pound Garrett intends to spend next season taking his new job quite seriously.
“I can’t be smiling at folks while I’m sacking people,” he said jokingly Saturday at the NFL’s annual scouting combine.
Some NFL team will learn to appreciate the refreshing candor coming from the early front-runner to be the first overall pick in the April draft.
Garrett looks like a prototypical pass rusher — big, fast, strong, a quick first step and incredibly productive in one of America’s toughest football conferences.
But what makes Garrett particularly attractive to NFL scouts is his position. These days, the only players who seem to be prized more than franchise quarterbacks are the ones hitting them. And players such as Garrett understand the expectations of being a consistent pass rusher.
“You have to be a game-changer,” Garrett said. “You have to be able to turn the tide of a game at any given time. Somebody who, when it’s thirdand-15 and maybe it’s the fourth quarter and we need a stop to get the ball back, they put you in and say, ‘You’re the guy.’ That’s how good you have to be.”
And many NFL teams are eager to get their first real look at a deep class of potential game-wreckers.
Defensive linemen and linebackers work out Sunday in Indianapolis.
The list begins with Garrett, a unique athlete who finished with 15 sacks last season and 47 in three years with the Aggies. If Garrett doesn’t go No. 1 in the draft, Alabama defensive tackle Jonathan Allen could.
Allen had 22½ sacks in his final two college seasons and returned two turnovers for touchdowns in 2016. He might have eased some concerns about both shoulders, which have been surgically repaired, by bench-pressing 225 pounds 21 times.
“It’s not really a problem now, but it might be a problem 15, 20 years down the road,” he said, referring to an arthritic left shoulder.
Defensive ends Solomon Thomas of Stanford and Taco Charlton of Michigan could be taken early, too. The stock of UCLA’s Takkarist McKinley took a big jump with an 18-sack season in 2016, and Tennessee’s Derek Barnett, Missouri’s Charles Harris and Temple’s Haason Reddick are intriguing prospects in a defensive class that is rife with talent.