STRENGTHS
Rasul is a very opportunistic defensive back. He reminds a lot of Seahawks Richard Sherman (see Archives). He is a physical corner back with solid athletic talent to play his position. He is smart and understands his abilities and can play zone coverage as well as single coverage’s because of his length and speed. He can be used inside or outside because he is a solid tackler but his best attribute is that he is always looking for the ball anyway he can get it. He will make receivers and running backs fumble using good form tackling. If receivers don’t have strong hands when catching the ball, Rasul will strip the receiver’s arms when tackling stripping the ball away from their body. He has good hands and is able to react quickly to any tipped ball or any badly thrown ball in the air. Rasul will bring a “safety like physicality” to your corner back position when you select him in the draft.

CONCERNS
Rasul is physical using his hands a lot so penalties will be an issue until he gets use to the referees in the NFL. He has very good speed but does lack quickness because of his length so smaller receivers will give him some problems if you expect him to go one on one with them but that’s when him being physical comes in to play. He is smart and I expect he could stun those little guys at the line throwing them off balance and off their routes.

BOTTOM LINE
Rasul is a good, smart corner back and understands his talent and understand how to use his talent. He’s a good tackler and will come up and support the run but if you get there before him he will gladly let you make the tackle so he can come in and strip the ball. He is always looking for the ball and in the right defense Rasul can be as impacting as Richard Sherman has been. Rasul needs to be in a 1 gap attack style of defensive front that plays zone or matchup zone situations on the back end. For those who might not know what a matchup zone is, it’s when you have responsibility for a receiver in man coverage but only in a designated zone and when that receiver crosses out of that zone you don’t follow him, you leave him to your teammate in the next zone and he picks him up. If the offense floods your zone your responsibility is the deepest man in that zone. It’s different from zone coverage where you play off the man and keep him in front of you at all times and do not let him get behind you deep because depending on safeties responsibilities you may or may not have help behind you. Match up zones make it difficult for QB’s and receivers to identify the coverage’s (Single or Zone) because it’s a combination of both styles of defenses and can confuse both QB and WR into what routes to run… that’s why you hear announcers saying that famous expression, the QB and WR weren’t on the same page on that play. It’s very hard to play a matchup zone unless you have very smart, talented, good tackling defensive backs that also have very good communication skills between all of the defensive backs. Rasul fits this type of defense. In man to man single coverage he will not be as effective because he lacks the quickness and in pure zone coverage’s he would be good but his body type would take a pounding coming from deep to make tackles all of the time. At least that’s how I see him.

Drew Boylhart  APR.2017