With the fifth round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, the Kansas City Chiefs selected EDGE Michael Danna out of Michigan. Danna’s tape shows exactly why the Chiefs picked him up and what he is bringing to the franchise.
The Kansas City Chiefs went into the 2020 NFL Draft with 20 of the 22 starters in the Super Bowl returning. Returning that many starters allowed the Chiefs to make picks in draft with the intentions of upgrading the team rather then filling needs. The Chiefs may “need” a second tight end to line up opposite Travis Kelce, but drafting a three down running back makes the explosive offense even more explosive.
The Chiefs still managed to fill any “needs” they had, but made massive upgrades at several key positions which includes their fifth round pick, edge rusher Michael Danna.
Spending time at Central Michigan University before transferring to Michigan for his senior year, Danna showed talent and aggressiveness on the edge and power in the trenches, making him a key player to line up anywhere the Chiefs want to use him. His film shows exactly what he brings to the table and where the coaches are going to have to work with him once practice facilities open up and teams can meet up.
Strength: Versatility
Coming into a year at Michigan, Danna had largely been tasked with gaining weight (up to 270 from his playing weight at 255 at Central Michigan). The goal was to rotate him inside, too, because that’s what Michigan tends to ask of their linemen. Yet at CMU, he was lighter and was a threat off the edge every time.
In the footage above, you can see Danna’s performance again Iowa, where he bounced outside and inside with regularity. Danna spends time with almost every single one of Iowa’s linemen, and has a highlight against every them all, bull rushing down the middle to collapse the pocket, or rushing off the edge and in blitz schemes to quickly make his presence felt by the QB and force hurried passes.
With this versatility and Chiefs’ defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s spastic and unreadable blitz patterns, Danna is could quickly find success in the Chiefs’ system.
Strength: Hustle
In high school, our coaches use to get under us if we “loafed,” which is what they called it when, after the play is no longer within range for you to have an effect on, you stopped rushing to the ball and took a breather or walked to where you needed to be. For every “loaf” our coaches saw on tape, the skill players would run another suicide, and the linemen would do another shuttle.
“Loafs” are completely normal to see in the NFL, especially by offensive and defensive linemen. They are not catching up to a skill player running at full speed in the middle of the field, so once they are more then ten yards down the field, why waste the energy? Quarterbacks are actually the most notorious about “loafing,” typically checking out of a play the moment the ball is released from their hand. Games are long, and you might need that energy you wasted in a vital moment later on.
In college, “loafs” are less common, but they still exist due again to the preservation of energy. Quarterbacks are still the worst about them, but you will see it occasionally from an offensive lineman or slower defensive tackle.
However, Michael Danna does not “loaf”; rather, he will stay in every play until the very end. Specifically in this tape, we are looking at the final play on the footage (starts at 5:29), where the Iowa Hawkeyes have a 4th and 10 with 49 seconds left and need a touchdown to tie the game.
This has been an exhaustingly long fourth quarter for the Wolverine defense, with the Michigan offense doing absolutely nothing to help put this game on ice or even get the defense a rest. But the defense, specifically the defensive line, has put in the work and has kept Iowa out of the end zone. After so much effort and with so little energy left, the defense is one play away from putting this one on ice and going home with a win over a higher ranked opponent.
Here, Danna puts in an effort that would make any coach extremely happy.
The ball snaps, and immediately the offensive line blows its blocking assignments and the defensive ends are in Nate Stanley’s face. Despite being dragged down, Iowa’s quarterback commits the cardinal sin of throwing the ball while going to the ground (with his left hand no less). This prayer is surprisingly caught by a running back who had missed a block and gotten lost in the backfield part of the flat because of it, and he tries to make something happen with it to keep the Hawkeyes in the game. He is stopped just inches from the line of scrimmage by a linebacker, and the Wolverines get the ball back with the ability to end the game.
Despite the play switching positions and a skill player running with the ball in the end, Danna, who lined up at inside for this play, stayed on top of the ball carrier at all points. Just a yard from Stanley when he is being dragged down, he quickly shifted his body and momentum to get after the running back the moment he saw him catch the ball. He stayed after him and being only an arms reach from him at the end of the play.
This hustle may not have an immediate effect on his success in the NFL, but when it is needed, like the fourth quarter of a close game, or when the team needs a momentum shift, Danna will be running hard to finish the play.
You can also see a great example of this on a screen play in this highlight video, or on the next slide.
Strength: Tackling
On display as far back as his high school tape, Michael Danna is a great tackler. Running backs, quarterbacks, tight ends—the position does not matter. When Danna puts his hands on them, they are going down.
His strength is on display when he tackles high, using his massive arms to wrap up the ball carrier and drag them down. Stiff arms have little to no effect on him, with his wingspan coming into play and just reaching around the ballcarrier’s arm and dishing out punishment for the disrespect. When Danna grabs the quarterback, they are not escaping. Mobile quarterbacks find their window of opportunity narrowed rapidly whenever Danna gets a hand on them.
Danna rarely had a missed or broken tackle in college, and if he can keep tackling at a high level in the NFL, he will find himself a ton of success.
Strength: Bend
When coming off the edge, it is important have a really good “bend” which means leaning your body and shifting your weight so that you can come around the edge of the line and into the back of the pocket, rather then ten yards upfield. This bend also helps elite defensive ends get under and around the lineman to put immediate pressure on the quarterback.
In the footage above, Michael Danna lines up primarily at defensive end, and is tasked with getting after Justin Fields, one of the best quarterbacks in college football. Fields has elite vision and pocket awareness, while making his best throws under pressure, so taking him down is no easy task.
Danna still puts in work against Fields, coming off the edge with speed and bending around the guard to push Fields up in the pocket, where in an ideal world, the nose tackles have pushed their blockers and are forcing the quarterback out of the pocket. Unfortunately this is not an ideal world, and Ohio State has an great set of linemen.
Despite the lack of success, Danna continues to attack the edge and bend his way into the pocket, showing off his abilities at edge every play he could.
Weakness: Escaping blocks
We are going back to the Iowa tape because there is so much to learn from this game. Danna does great when he either goes unblocked or beats the guard around the bend, but when a lineman gets his hands on Danna, he struggles to affect the play.
Occasionally, Danna will put his strength and build on display and manhandle the lineman, pushing him back into the pocket or tossing him away, but mostly, Danna gets driven back or taken away from the play. The fourth play of the tape above shows that, with Danna being manhandled and moved away from the play while the running back bowls forward for a nice gain.
Same on the fifth play, where instead of utilizing his bend and beating that guard around the edge, he gets caught and is kept out of the pocket while Stanley takes his time and throws a great pass. Sixth play, the lineman steps forward, redirects and stops Danna and creates a seam that should have allowed the running back to get a clean run.
The ninth play shows Danna using his bend along with a great blitz scheme to get after the quarterback. Unfortunately, Danna is caught in a block by a smart guard and is stopped dead in his tracks and his blitz is ineffective. Again, sometimes he just figures it out, and uses his muscular build and keeps driving his feet and destroys a lineman, like the eighth play of this film, but that is an exception.
Weakness: Inconsistency
Watching Danna play is like watching two different players play. One play he will explode off the line and get past the guard into the backfield. The next he will run the flattest edge rush and get manhandled by a tackle who fell back to pick him up. One play he will use his strength to push through a double team and get in the quarterback’s face; the next he is getting driven out of bounds by a lineman on a trap.
His motor is non-stop and his tackling is consistent, but his burst isn’t always present and the results are too inconsistent. Watch his play at 5:38, where he is slow and sluggish despite being unblocked, then 9:40 where Danna uses his speed and a blitz scheme to catch a lineman off guard. At 11:22, he explodes off the line and uses his strength to drive that lineman back and has to be picked up by the running back, causing the rest of the defensive line to get in the quarterbacks face and force and interception. At 14:20, however, he is immediately taken out of the play by being slow off the line and being caught going outside while the running back goes inside.
Inconsistency is a huge problem of Danna’s game, and when on an NFL field, it will absolutely find you a spot on the bench, if not the practice squad.
The Verdict:
Michael Danna shows off some explosiveness and strength on occasion, making quarterbacks feel his presence despite extremely low sack numbers. He can shoot the gaps at times and his effort will keep him chasing after the play until the whistle blows. When he runs flat from the edge spot, he could use his explosiveness to push the QB into Frank Clark‘s domain and hopefully force a deep sack.
His inconsistency is the biggest question mark when it comes to Danna’s future in the NFL, but hopefully with proper coaching and direction, he can make his presence felt in the NFL.