Missouri DE Shane Ray NFL Draft Scouting Report
Missouri Tigers edge rusher Shane Ray has become quite a polarizing prospect for the 2015 NFL Draft. Some people love Ray, others don’t like him at all.
I put on the tape for the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, and he did not disappoint. With 68 tackles, 22.5 for a loss, 13 sacks, and three forced fumbles, it doesn’t take long to see what makes this guy such a special young player. Let’s take a more in-depth look at his skill set.
Measurables
Strengths
There are a lot of different things that jumped out on tape watching Shane Ray play the RDE position, which is pretty much where he strictly lined up for Mizzou over this past year.
First and foremost, this guy is lightning quick for a defensive end, as you might expect for a guy that plays on the front four and weighs under 250 pounds. He is so fast, he made D.J. Humphries — by most accounts an athletic tackle — look absolutely silly late in the game against Florida. He did that to a lot of tackles, though.
Another thing that really jumps out about Ray is his motor. He finishes plays really well. He doesn’t give up on plays that don’t come his direction, and he can change direction on a dime. There were a few plays I highlighted on tape where Ray made a nice play to get past the offensive lineman and burst into the backfield where a running back would try to make a cut and avoid him. Ray does a phenomenal job of re-routing, planting, and exploding and taking backs down.
That’s part of the intrigue here as well. Ray does a great job of wrapping up ball carriers despite his non-ideal length or hand size for a defensive lineman. He uses great form, leverage, and power when putting hits on players.
One thing that I really liked about watching Ray was the fact that he’s not just a speed rusher — this guy packs a punch in a smaller body type for a defensive end. There weren’t many — if any — plays that I charted where Ray gets knocked off his feet by an offensive lineman. He is almost always the aggressor. He has violent hands and uses a really good swim/rip move to the outside to beat linemen standing between him and a quarterback.
I have to say, my favorite quality about Ray is his ability to be a ‘closer’. What I mean by that is this — at the end of a game, when your defense needs a big stop to keep momentum or shift it around, Ray can provide it. Watching as many Broncos games as I have, I would point to the success they’ve had with Von Miller, where you might be in a tight game and then all of a sudden, Miller takes a game over on a couple of consecutive TFLs or a big sack on second down to force the ball back to your offense.
Ray is one of the only rushers in this draft I’ve seen so far that plays with that kind of tenacity at the end of games, even in blowout victories. I think he’s going to be really valuable to a team in that regard, because late in a game when your team is trying to come back, Shane Ray is going to be on the other side making sure that doesn’t happen.
That’s what being a successful pass rusher is all about in the NFL — timing. Ray proved that over and over again this past year for Missouri.
Weaknesses
Obviously, the big weakness here is size. Ray isn’t big at all for a defensive end, so he’s likely going to have to transition to a 3-4 OLB role in the NFL but I think he can still play some end when called upon. He’s a mismatch.
That being said, his size proved to be detrimental at times when he would get locked in with offensive linemen. If he can’t find a way to initially bat hands away and a lineman gets engaged, Ray can be rendered useless for periods. There were times in the film study I did of Ray against Central Florida where the lineman would set a good base, and he couldn’t get past him for the life of him.
The only other weakness I could find is the fact that Ray put up these kind of numbers with one year of production. He was playing behind some great players two years ago in Michael Sam and Kony Ealy at Mizzou, but this year he shined so a smaller sample size might be something NFL teams are curious about.
NFL Scheme Fit
3-4 OLB (Joker)
4-3 RDE
Round Projection/NFL Impact
I think Shane Ray has the chance to be the best pass rusher from his class. I came away from film study of Vic Beasley and Randy Gregory incredibly impressed, but Ray is in that same class, despite what other people are saying. I’m not sure how much his lack of size is going to hinder him at the NFL level, but this is — to me — a top 10 selection and a guy who is going to be a high impact player from day one.