https://theathletic.com/4472983/2023/04/30/bruce-feldman-nfl-draft-2/7. The Jets’ first-rounder, Will McDonald IV, was the flip side of Levis in terms of being a guy who the coaches privately were higher on than the mock drafts seemed to be. He went No. 15 overall, and if he’s as good as some NFL coaches and coaches who faced Iowa State think, New York fans will love him.
“The way he turns the corner is incredible,” a coach told The Athletic this spring. “He’s so loose and has good pass rush moves. I think he just played so hard. He doesn’t have the same traits, but he was a more productive player than (Tyree) Wilson. They asked him to do some things you don’t usually see from guys that size — playing in the B-gap or being a 4i. They asked him to do a lot for them. He played the run way better this year than a year ago. Every year we played him he got better.”
McDonald is lighter than most coaches would want — he weighed in at 239 at 6-4 in Indy, but he has almost 35-inch arms and was a fixture on the Freaks List the past few years.
An NFL D-line coach we talked to last week was even more effusive about him. “He’s probably the most twitchy guy in the whole D-line group,” the coach said. “You can’t teach that kind of bend. He’s very much like Haason Reddick and Brian Burns.”
