Florida State EDGE Jared Verse is a contender to be the top prospect at his position in the 2024 NFL Draft. But what is it about Verse that makes him such an enthralling competitor? Here, we’ll do a deep dive into Verse’s game and what he offers as an eventual NFL building block.
Jared Verse Draft Profile and Measurements
- Height: 6’3 7/8″
- Weight: 254 pounds
- Length: 33 1/2″
- Wingspan: 79 1/2″
- Hand: 9 7/8″
- Position: Edge Rusher
- School: Florida State
- Current Year: Redshirt Senior
First-round prospects don’t always come from the five-star talent pool. Verse, who was a tight end and defensive end at Central Columbia High School in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, went largely overlooked on the recruiting circuit, and he redshirted his first year at Albany.
As a redshirt freshman, Verse first began to show his potential. He accrued four sacks and 10 tackles for loss in a breakout campaign. And then, in 2021, he earned first-team All-Colonial Athletic Association honors, amassing 10 sacks and 11.5 TFLs on the year.
Jared Verse is legit 💪🔥
CFB Live Blog: https://t.co/LXPH5piOFM
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) October 1, 2022
After reaching prominence on the FCS stage, Verse leveraged his performance into an NFL audition at Florida State. And as the Seminoles rose in 2022, so too did Verse. He didn’t miss a beat moving from the CAA to the ACC, racking up nine sacks and 17 TFLs in a 2022 campaign that earned him first-team All-ACC recognition.
Verse could have declared for the 2023 NFL Draft, and he would’ve been a likely first-round pick alongside Will Anderson Jr., Tyree Wilson, and others. But instead, he came back to contend for a title at Florida State — as well as the EDGE1 mantle in 2024.
The 2023 campaign started a bit slower for Verse, but the Seminoles star ended up matching his sack total from 2022. And in the final two games of the season against Florida and Louisville, Verse put up a combined 4.5 sacks and six TFLs.
Verse has the production at the highest level, and at the NFL Combine, he verified his athleticism and strength as well — logging a 4.58 40-yard dash with a 1.6 10-yard split, a 35″ vertical, a 10’7″ broad jump, and 31 bench reps.
On the surface, Verse has everything you could need from an edge rusher. But does the tape match the tangible factors?
Jared Verse Scouting Report
Strengths
- Bolt of lightning off the snap, who immediately stresses tackles vertically to the apex.
- High-octane, hyperactive athlete who moves in short, successive bursts of energy.
- Effervescent twitch allows him to put tackles on a string with his unpredictability.
- Well-sized defender with good frame density, length, and overall proportions.
- Combined instant burst, length, and motor amount to an elite power profile.
- Can use urgent leg drive and his inbuilt energetic motion to sustain power exertions.
- Able to forklift up on power rushes, get under tackles, and use his base to dislodge.
- Has ankle flexion to reduce his surface area and corner underneath extensions.
- Initial hand placement is precise and deliberate, maximizing force and impact at contact.
- Can flash his hands to widen tackles, then explode inside with violent bull-rushes.
- Able to widen tackles and then pry his way inside the B-gap with violent double swipes.
- Can levy quick long-arm-chop combos to simultaneously erode his blocker’s balance and deconstruct extensions.
- Brings constant, unmatched energy as a rusher and routinely fights through contact.
- Superlative run defender who can violently stack, shed, and wrench down anchors.
- Brings incredible pursuit speed and reach and has the range to run down ball carriers.
Weaknesses
- Doesn’t quite have elite length or mass.
- Doesn’t quite have elite hip flexibility when breaching and rolling through the apex.
- Can’t always pinch hyper-acute angles and sustain acceleration to enter the pocket.
- Frame is slightly high-cut, impacting open-field change-of-direction at times.
- Can struggle to manage his pad level and weight distribution when stunting.
- At times, can better channel hand force, as clubs sometimes fail to erode anchors.
- Sometimes nullifies base ahead of contact, which can limit knock-back power.
- Can be baited into over-setting laterally by read options and can be late to recover.
- Will turn 24 years old in November of his rookie season.
Current Draft Projection and Summary
Jared Verse grades out as an early-to-mid Round 1 prospect in the 2024 NFL Draft. He was my preliminary EDGE1 heading into the 2023 season, and he remains a top-three prospect at the EDGE position, and a Top 20 talent overall.
Verse’s production at Florida State was no accident. The requisite physical profile is there, but he’s also a rangy playmaker in pursuit and a capable hand-fighter, with the motor to sustain an impact across all three downs.
Not only has Verse shown that he can employ his traits in tandem to generate awesome amounts of power, but he can also work off of power exertions, multitask while prying around blocks, and manipulate blockers one-on-one with his hyperactive twitch, control, and patience.
A need for more consistency on second and third counter attempts is the only thing keeping Verse from being an elite hand-fighter, and he’s surely one of the best technicians in the 2024 NFL Draft EDGE group.
That makes his physical selling points — quantifiably elite explosiveness, effervescent twitch, and blistering speed around the arc — more tantalizing.
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Verse visibly lacks elite bend, and while he has enough ankle flexion, his high-cut frame can prevent him from bending underneath blocks, and rolling his hips through finesse rushers. Thus, he may be more confined as a speed-to-power specialist at the next level.
Nevertheless, Verse has the combined burst, motor, strength, force capacity, and violence in his game to be a high-level two-phase disruptor, and he’s easily worthy of Round 1 capital.
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