171st Pick Review: Daelin Hayes is an elite run defender AND an elite person

“It means absolutely nothing for you to have these gifts breathed into you, for you to hold your breath and not exhale them back into the world. So my challenge to you: continue to exhale your time, your resources, your love, your empathy, your compassion.“

Daelin Hayes was a captain, his senior year at Notre Dame, but he isn’t just a leader of football players. He is a leader. Period.

The quote above is from the Juneteenth Rally last year at Notre Dame (full speech here), where Hayes spoke and marked himself as a leader of the community, not just on the football field. But what was most impressive about that speech was his call to action for those present to serve their community first and do the work there to make their small corner of the world a better place. A call he made to others but he also lives, himself.

If you’ve watched his media interview, immediately after being drafted, you’ll likely have taken away that Hayes grew up as a Ravens fan, watching Ed Reed, Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs as a young aspiring defender.

What you might have missed from the video though, were the few questions at the end relating to Hayes’ community work – barely scratching the surface of how much this young man has already done. Quite simply, he isn’t going to just make the Ravens better, I suspect he will leave Baltimore better given his commitment to giving back.

A quick read of this summary of his work, on the occasion of his winning the prestigious Freddie Solomon Community Spirit Award, will leave you wondering how on earth he had the time to develop his skills on the football field across his time on campus.

He taught twice-weekly classes to 4th and 5th graders on how to resolve conflicts healthily, he worked food banks and homeless charities, volunteered at Boys and Girls clubs, mentored at a Juvenile Detention Center. I know many athletes do a lot for their community but Hayes doing so much at such a young age is laudable. Especially given the motivation for doing this that he laid out in the speech quoted above. A commitment, as he put it, to leave “Notre Dame better than when we found it.”

So if you’re convinced on the person, which it’s hard not to be, I took a long look at his tape to see what the Ravens are getting in Hayes on the field.

I wasn’t surprised to see the Ravens double dip at the Edge position. However, I was surprised to see them double dip with two players with such minimal sack production. I’ve already written about Odafe Oweh, but Hayes season high sack total was three, despite playing significant snaps over three of his four eligible years at Notre Dame.

But as with Oweh, the bare facts will never tell you the whole story. It’s likely too that Hayes wasn’t drafted with the mindset that the Ravens can significantly upgrade his ability as a pass-rusher. With Oweh there are plenty of signs that his sack production will increase as a pro, that’s less the case with Hayes but the Ravens don’t need him to be a big-time sack guy.

Having just signed Bowser to a 3 year extension, and expecting his snap total to increase somewhat with the departure of Judon, the Ravens had a spot on the roster for a developmental SAM. This is the linebacker on the opposite side of the formation to main rush spot, for so long manned by Terrell Suggs. This spot has to be far more than a pass rusher, which is why Bowser is ideally suited to this role.

This role has often been filled by players who had high sack totals in college and typically the Ravens have always looked to fill this spot with a relatively athletic and productive college player who they develop into a more rounded outside linebacker in a 3-4. The Ravens normally look for projections to the position at the next level but Hayes has strengths that the Ravens often don’t prioritise when looking at candidates to fill this spot.

That was the long way of saying – don’t expect Hayes to return big sack totals in the pros, the Ravens aren’t projecting that. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be a valuable role player for this defense in the future. In fact, some of my favorite all-time Ravens have filled this unselfish spot on the defense, stand up Jarret Johnson.

Hayes played through all four years of eligibility at Notre Dame, seeing the field most prior to 2020, in his sophomore and junior seasons before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury in his senior season. Returning as a graduate, he started every game opposite fellow 2021 draftee Adetokunbo Ogundeji.

Fair warning if you do watch his tape, and don’t watch a lot of tape, you’ll find him boring. But for any fellow run-defending connoisseurs like me, you’ll find his tape anything but boring, in fact only boringly consistent in how great of a run defender he is. And for me, when it comes to run defense, that’s what I’m looking for – boring consistency. I suspect it’s what the Ravens look for too, consistently playing your assignment, consistently showing the technique and resilience that you need in the trenches at the next level.

He sets the edge with remarkable consistency and discipline, not just in the end result of his play but also in the technique and football intelligence that goes into it on a snap to snap basis. He processes quickly as an edge defender and quickly moves into his position on run plays. He will strike first with leverage, accuracy and pop, establishing a position of dominance quickly and controlling the offensive lineman’s outside shoulder. The power in his hands in this initial move to play the run is substantial and you can see it deployed time, and time again.

This discipline and unselfish run defending prowess is interspersed with reps where he absolutely blows up the Offensive Tackle with his initial strike in the run game. He can wreck running plays with this initial move that not only allows him to play with consistency but also allows him to make a big impact on the ball carrier. He was, for me, a big reason why Notre Dame’s defense was ranked number one in stuff rate by Football Outsiders, that means no other team in the nation stopped run plays at or near the line of scrimmage at the same rate as Notre Dame did. When he did unspeakable things like this to Offensive Tackles (playing opposite #71 in the clip below), you can see why:

These flashes on individual plays can be found across his tape but his sheer dominance against the run, is underscored by a consistent brilliance that leaves him in the stack and shed position against all-comers – doesn’t matter your unique blend of size and speed as a run blocker, he will get into his position and beat you every single snap. He will stack and shed when playing inside too and make a play on the ball carrier.

He’ll also have enough athleticism to beat you to your spot too. The clip below – the kick-out guy takes a slight mis-step that benefits Hayes but the angle he takes, it almost looks like he has anticipated the guard taking this route on the block and he simply bends his rush from up-field, effortlessly towards the ball-carrier and around the block. Plenty of athleticism and explosion necessary to play the run.

This first step explosion, which I think is more the result of good anticipation of the snap is followed up by a quick second and third step in his pass rush which he then tries to work off. It mostly lends itself to a speed rush that is not as effective as you would expect given the frequency with which he uses it. His use of leverage in the run game is excellent and you can see flashes of his bend in his pass rush too but it’s usually not deployed as effectively as it could be. His hands need work – you don’t often see him win with great pass rush technique – it’s usually motor and smarts that gets him home or gets him pressures. Or alternatively – there have been occasions when he deploys the bend and explosion well to get a sack, like the below when he’s too quick for the interior lineman on an obvious passing down (lined up outside the Left Guard below).

When he has to combine his bend and explosion with good hands, he can be found wanting and with little disengage. He often misses with his inside hand, whether it be a jab or a long-arm and he gets in trouble from the get-go in terms of winning the rep. You can see a good example of this below where the pop in his attempted stab is negated by the placement of his hand so close to the top of Carman, the OT’s shoulder pad. It slides up and off so he can’t use his outside hand to disengage because the stab has failed to destabilise Carman sufficiently and he has managed to latch on at length. (#9 in the clip below lining up outside Carman, the Left Tackle)

Of course, the other thing we need our SAM linebacker to do is cover. You may not know it, but we are currently spoilt by Tyus Bowser’s all around coverage ability given his athleticism – Hayes will never be that guy, he’s tight-hipped and doesn’t have the kind of raw speed that Bowser does. But he gets off his spot quickly with his anticipation and smarts, and he is pretty decent on the half-turn, gaining ground quickly when he drops into the flat. More often than not, he takes away the speed-out and always has a play on the receiver to minimise yards after the catch. When he’s not taking away a receiver coming into his zone, he reads the QB and gets himself in throwing lanes. We saw Judon become pretty good in space for his size as he developed across his time with the Ravens, while never being a plus athlete. Hayes makes me think of this kind of upside in space, which is more than adequate for our scheme.

But what I think I love most about Hayes’ play and I suspect what the Ravens will have loved too, is his football intelligence. He is a smart football player who plays with anticipation – keys on pre-snap motion and formations and gets himself quickly in the right spot to make a play. You can see him sniff out the screen on the first clip and stop it before it gets going, and in the second clip, he keys on the pre-snap motion - watch him move his head and calculate - before immediately taking the pass to the flat away, resulting in a sack.

In the end, Hayes dropped as far as he did because of that lack of pass rush and the lack of any sign of that changing in the near future. He doesn’t look as though he will threaten many edges at the next level but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a very good player, especially in this scheme. Yes, the Ravens normally look for college pass rush production for both their OLB spots, despite not needing it at both in the pros. In Hayes though, I think they saw an elite run defender, with some potential dropping in coverage, with a well above average football IQ, all packed into an elite human being and leader – so they pulled the trigger in the fifth round. I don’t think he’ll be flashy but I do think he’ll become the sort of league-wide underappreciated role player that stays very appreciated in Baltimore.