Scouting Notes
- As tenacious as they come, Calijah Kancey plays with a jetpack in his behind on every down.
- Exceptionally strategic with his moves and counters, constantly building an attack plan and executing.
- Uses leverage to perfection. Despite being undersized, if blockers don’t square up with Kancey, he can drive right through their weak angle.
- Severe lack of brute size and force shows up in a multitude of aspects.
- Lack of power leads to poor run defense, as he can get pushed off the spot with relative ease.
- Gets routinely swallowed up by bigger O-Linemen that can get their hands on him.
- Has no success against double-teams.
- Is the last one to the Quarterback on passing downs too often for comfort.
- Kancey falls and trips a ton, potentially from the lack of power he can get easily shoved over.
- Great production, although most of it came against Virginia, which was one of the least daunting opponents in 2022.
- Despite an explosive Combine performance, he didn’t quell any of my strength concerns.
Short Summary
Calijah Kancey is an extremely polarizing prospect. Some scouts have him as high as Top 10, others don’t even have a 1st round grade on him. This couldn’t be a better view of Kancey’s skillset.
From a tools perspective, he is borderline elite. He executes every move with perfection and is timely and precise when executing. He has a relentless motor and has made many impact plays using his toughness, tenacity, and pure talent.
From a physical perspective, Calijah Kancey is not good at all. He lacks upper-body strength, and his lower-body strength is even worse. If he was dominant without this high-end power I would be able to overlook it, but he was consistently shut down by more powerful blockers with above-average technique. Based on that, most NFL blockers should be able to completely stonewall him.
With Calijah Kancey being a prototypical undersized Interior D-linemen, I think it’s risky to draft him early. Many scouts will point to the Aaron Donald comparison. Both are undersized, and both were dominant (at least at times). They even both went to Pitt. The big (and most important) difference is that Aaron Donald was extremely powerful for his size. Calijah Kancey doesn’t have that.
If he can put up good numbers in the power drills at the Combine, he could see his stock rise a bit, but I am hesitant about Kancey.
Scouting Card Key
- Age refers to the age of the player come draft night, rounded to the nearest half-age.
- Percentage numbers in the Player Info and Combine Stats sections – This refers to the percentile that number belongs to among all players at his position, going back nearly a decade.
- GP – Games Played
- TFLs – Tackles for Loss
- FF – Forced Fumbles
- Snap% – Percentage of team’s defensive snaps where the player was on the field.
- PR Grade – Pass Rush Grade.
- Missed Tackles and MT% – Missed tackle rate. Percentiles of these stats are inverse; the higher the number, the lower the percentile. Naturally, players with more playing time will rack up higher numbers, even in the rate category.
- IDL Snap% – Percentage of snaps played on the defensive interior (between the tackles).
- EDGE Snap% – Percentage of snaps played on the defensive edge (over or outside the tackle). This stat generally points to the athletic ability and positional dominance of a player. The more capable he is, the more time his coaches will plan for him to be on the edge.
- Reaction – Reactionary speed.
- Double Team – The ability to be successful even when double-teamed. Playing on the interior, this won’t be a rare occurrence, and it’s crucial that players don’t get completely shut down. Of course, this is all relative, as it’s expected to be mostly unsuccessful in those situations.
Credit
Advanced stats – pff.com
Scouting card template / idea – Jordan Pun @Texans_Thoughts
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