Chris McClellan Scouting Report: Packers rookie shows plenty of flashes

Strengths

One of the things that immediately stands out on tape with McClellan is how powerful his upper body is. Even when he’s unable to get his hand placed correctly or engaging from proper angles, the Packers rookie does a great job of shedding off blocks thanks to his length and strength to get himself free. That upper body play strength also shows up as a bull rusher, allowing him to get extended with good leg drive to collapse the pocket. When fully extended, he can also maximize that strength to hold the point of attack against the run and prevent being washed out with some surprising balance from awkward angles. As a pass rusher, McClellan also flashes some surprising quickness for his size. He has a good feel for being able to set up blockers to commit and prep for his bull rush from a certain angle, then quickly cross their face with an effective swim move to work his way into the face of the quarterback.

Weaknesses

For as strong as McClellan is in his upper body, I still have some concerns with his lower body strength to anchor against double teams and bigger road graders in the run game, especially when he’s unable to keep his pads low. While his tape has some flashes of being able to anchor down, there’s not a ton of consistency in that area to the point I’d be a bit worried about him being a primary option as a nose tackle on Green Bay’s defense. There are also some lapses in gap discipline when watching McClellan, vacating his gap in some certain blitz packages that opens up some huge rushing lanes for running backs. He can also lose track of the ball when engaged with blockers, getting himself out of position when unblocked. The good news is that a lot of these deficiencies feel fixable, and while McClellan will never be the most disruptive, explosive, or agile interior defender, cleaning up some of the discipline issues while improving his lower body strength will make him an effective rotational defensive tackle.