DC chefs Steve Spagnuolo compares EDGE Mike Danna to Elvis Dumervil

For all the heat the Kansas City Chiefs defense has received from fans and media this season, here and there we’ve seen plays that give us hope it can make a difference – and the defensive end. Chiefs Mike Danna created a few. of these bright spots.

With fellow edge rushers Frank Clark (hamstrings) and Chris Jones (wrist) grappling with injuries, the Chiefs were in desperate need of passing production – and to find it, they turned to their second defensive end. year.

So far this season, Danna has three sacks, including two against the Eagles on Sunday.

A Michigan fifth-round pick in 2020, Danna showed flashes of the player who was one of the nation’s top assistants in 2018. Although he only played 31% of defensive shots for the Chiefs last season , Danna was able to accumulate nine. Pressures QB – including three bags. So you don’t have to be a math genius to understand that if his usage had increased he could easily have had seven bags for the year.

That would place him where Chris Jones and Frank Clark’s defensive debut was in 2020. But last season, Focus on professional football gave Danna a passing mark of just 53.2 – while Jones had a 93.1 mark.

So it’s probably too early to say that Danna is as good as Jones – at least not yet.

But if you ask Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo which player he would compare to Danna, a name comes to mind..

“I worked with Elvis Dumervil when I was with the Baltimore Ravens,” Spagnuolo told reporters Thursday, “and Elvis was built pretty much the same.”

In 11 seasons with the Ravens, Denver Broncos and San Francisco 49ers, Dumervil had 105.5 sacks. Undersized for his stance at 5’11 ” and 250 pounds, he’s the only player under six feet to have recorded at least 100 sacks.

While Danna is not quite as short as Dumervil, he’s smaller among NFL defensive enders: 6-foot-2, 255 pounds – and with 32.5-inch arms.

Traditionally, Spagnuolo has valued the size and length of its edge rushers. While with the New York Giants, he coached Michael Strahan, Jason Pierre-Paul and Justin Tuck. And Spagnuolo is well aware that Danna does not fit that kind of physical profile.

“We all know the prototypical D-end is the six-four, six-five long arm, right? He noted Thursday. “And it’s not Mike.”

However, there is precedent for small edge rushers to be successful in the Spagnuolo system: Oliver Vernon was basically the same height as Danna when he was playing for Spagnuolo in New York City. The coach attributed some of Danna’s success as an undersized player to using his lower center of gravity to get under the blocks of opposing linemen.

“Sometimes,” said Spagnuolo, “those guys with the leverage underneath and the long-arm rush that Mike has (and that Elvis revolutionized, in my opinion) – I think Mike was able to go a bit further by doing some of this thing. “

But Spagnuolo also said that the main thing that brings success to Danna is her effort on every shot.

“Mike is one of my favorite guys,” he noted, “because he’s chin to hairline, [he’s] really smart … We always said that about the pass rush: it’s 20% technical [and] 80% want to – [and] Mike still has the 80% want to. “

Of course, with just four games in his second season (and around 100 sacks behind Dumervil), it’s still too early to say what kind of player Danna will ultimately become; only time will tell if it will live up to its coordinator’s comparison. But with the injury issues the Chiefs have faced among their EDGE players this season, he might just have the chance to prove himself.

Even though Jones and Clark both end up playing this Sunday night against the Buffalo Bills, Spagnuolo said he still sees Danna having a lot of work to do as part of the defensive end’s rotation.

“It’s all played out on deck,” he said, “just to keep the guys cool. I think we would always try to do that – try to keep it fairly balanced. “