Willis finds cozy place on 49ers’ defensive line
Jordan Willis began his season in New Jersey, moved to California in October and is now working temporarily in Arizona.
Funny, the 49ers defensive end who lives in Missouri has never felt more at home in the NFL.
Willis, 25, a 2017 thirdround pick of the Bengals, says he finally found a defensive system that suited him after he was traded from the Jets in October.
And the early returns back up his belief.
Consider: Willis had three sacks while playing 959 snaps in 50 games with the Bengals and Jets.
With the 49ers? He has 2.5 sacks while playing 100 snaps in five games.
“With the Bengals, you had a run stance and you had a passrush stance,” Willis said of his employer for his first two seasons. “You had a run mentality and a pass mentality. This scheme ( with the 49ers) is like an attack mentality on every play and then you react to whatever else is going on. It takes away the thinking.”
The 49ers are hoping to unlock Willis’ considerable physical gifts after acquiring
him for a modest price. They traded a 2022 sixthround pick to the Jets and received Willis and a 2021 seventhround selection in return.
The largely unnoticed swap reflected how far Willis’ stock had sunk since he was the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and a thirdteam Associated Press AllAmerican in his last season at Kansas State.
Willis, listed at 6foot4 and 270 pounds, wowed at the NFL combine — he ranked second in the 40yard dash ( 4.53 seconds) and vertical jump ( 39 feet) among all defensive linemen — and was the No. 73 overall pick in 2017.
Willis doesn’t assign all the blame for his lack of production on his first two employers. However, he doesn’t think the Bengals and Jets had the ideal scheme or environment for him to develop.
Cincinnati went 1319 in his two seasons and had the NFL’s 32ndranked defense in 2018. The Bengals wanted Willis to add weight and he occasionally moved inside to defensive tackle.
“I could go on all day about my Bengals experience,” Willis said.
The Jets? They are 013 and fired defensive coordinator Gregg Williams last week.
“I was excited ( about the trade) because, obviously, you see what’s going on with the Jets,” said Willis, who dropped weight and played outside linebacker in New York.
With the 49ers, Willis has a fan in defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, who had the same role with Detroit when he met with Willis at the Senior Bowl and combine in 2017 and thought he’d be an ideal fit in Detroit’s scheme.
This offseason, Willis spent part of his time working with retired longtime NFL defensive line coach Jim Washburn, 71, at a training facility in Franklin, Tenn. Washburn is Kocurek’s coaching mentor and the father of the Wide9 defensive line alignment Kocurek brought to the 49ers last year.
It’s fair to say the 49ers wouldn’t have traded for Willis if Washburn gave Kocurek a poor scouting report.
In working with Washburn, Willis also occasionally trained with a group of 49ers that included defensive linemen D. J. Jones, Kevin Givens and Kerry Hyder.
The 49ers hope Willis’
story unfolds like that of Hyder, another undertheradar defensive end who was acquired by the 49ers this year based on a strong recommendation from Kocurek. Hyder, who played for Kocurek in Detroit, has a teamhigh 7.5 sacks after he had just two sacks the previous two seasons.
Willis is working to reach that level.
“We like the progress that he’s making,” defensive coordinator Robert Saleh said. “There's a lot less thinking on our defensive front in terms of what we're asking him to do, and so with that he can play as fast as possible, and he's been doing a good job. ... We like the direction he's going and we’d love for him to finish strong over the last three games.”
Willis is in the final year of his contract and is craving stability. And the 49ers could have interest in retaining him, partly because of their potential paucity of pass rushers on their roster this offseason: They could release defensive end Dee Ford in a costcutting move and Hyder, Dion Jordan and Ronald Blair, who has not played in 2020 because of a knee injury, will be free agents.
Willis knows what a strong finish could mean: He could stay in the first place that’s felt like home.
“It will give me an opportunity to earn a chance to be here next year,” Willis said. “And then I can continue to grow in this scheme.”