The 2024 NFL Draft is getting close, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.
Here's our report on Kris Jenkins.
Jenkins will be an interesting projection and transition to the next level, given how he was deployed at Michigan. He was predominantly aligned as a two-gap DL working off contact rather than attacking and penetrating gaps. There were run-game snaps in which he showed sudden quickness off the ball, slanting into gaps (function of defensive front call) and making plays.
That is not the same as being as a true one-gap penetrator in an even front scheme. Coaches must project whether Jenkins has the physical and athletic traits to be a one-gap penetrator or if he is a two-gap DT with a defined set of traits. That transitions him to the NFL in a less expansive way, becoming team- and scheme-specific.
There was no question Jenkins showed flashes of playing with the kind of off-the-ball suddenness and lateral quickness that would be needed to play as a one-gap DT. But that was not the foundation of how he was deployed in Michigan's defense.
Jenkins' game is built on leverage, power and force with the off-the-ball explosiveness and strong, heavy hands to get inside and underneath interior OL to control and displace them to make plays in the run game. The question is whether there is more to his game, taking him beyond being a rotational piece to more of a foundational player who can play 40-50 snaps a game and be a factor on all three downs.
As Jenkins enters the NFL, the bottom line is his lack of a meaningful pass-rush profile and one-gap penetrating traits will significantly limit his early deployment.
He is an A’Shawn Robinson kind of player who will begin his NFL career as a rotational second-unit base DT (likely best deployed in a five-man DL front), hoping that with coaching and natural development, he can become more than that.
There were a few individual snapshots of pass rush throughout his tape, including an effective spin move. So, the question becomes whether that can be a starting point to develop into at least a functional inside pass rusher at the next level.
Jenkins was a three-star recruit out of Maryland and played four years at Michigan, becoming a full-time starter in his junior season of 2022.
In 2022, Jenkins lined up at DT and DE in Michigan’s defensive fronts, including some snaps outside the OT to the open side. He was the 4i-4 technique in Michigan’s five-man fronts with snaps at 3-technique and
2i in the four-man fronts. Jenkins was not normally part of the sub fronts on third down, which said the coaching staff did not see him as a strong inside pass rusher.
In 2023, Jenkins again lined up at DE and DT, including snaps at 0-technique. He was a rotational player in
Michigan’s deep defensive front, playing only approximately half the snaps. Jenkins' best game of the season regarding pass rush came in the National Championship game vs. Washington. He showed some interior quickness to win with a spin move and a club rip move.
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