Scouting Terrence Brooks
Yesterday, the Jets announced that they had traded cornerback Dexter McDougle to the Philadelphia Eagles for safety Terrence Brooks.
The 26-year old Brooks is listed at 5-foot-11 and 205 pounds and was a third round pick out of Florida State in 2014. He spent his first two seasons with the Baltimore Ravens and last year with the Eagles, but has been primarily a special teamer over the past two years. He has 32 tackles, four forced fumbles and an interception in his career.
Background
Brooks started off his career at FSU as a cornerback, contributing mainly on special teams as a freshman and moving into a rotational role in his second season. He moved to safety and started his final two seasons, which included a national title in his senior year.
In 2013, Brooks was voted all-ACC and CBS gave him all-American honors as he set a career highs with 56 tackles along with two forced fumbles. He also tied career marks with two interceptions and five passes defensed.
The Ravens drafted Brooks in the third round and he saw plenty of playing time as a reserve safety in his rookie year. However, he suffered a season ending injury and was relegated to a mostly special teams role in 2015 after returning.
Brooks didn't make it through final cuts in 2016 and was claimed off waivers by the Eagles, who used him almost exclusively on special teams last year. He has yet to start an NFL game.
Now let's review what Brooks brings to the table, divided into categories.
Measurables
Brooks turned heads with a 4.4 40-yard dash at the combine, but - other than his vertical leap - the rest of his workout numbers were disappointing.
At his pro day, Brooks made incremental improvements to his bench press and broad jump and posted a disappointing 4.56 short shuttle. However, he did make a major improvement to his three cone time, posting a solid 7.01.
Usage
Brooks is listed as a free safety and would primarily line up deep with the Ravens, although he came up into the box a lot too and often matched up with slot receivers. The Eagles used him in similar fashion in the first two preseason games this year.
Coverage skills
As a converted cornerback, Brooks at least should have some base-level man to man coverage skills and his closing speed is pretty good. However, he'll play deep most of the time.
On this particular play, he lacks awareness, struggles to adjust to the ball in the air and is outmuscled at the point of the catch.
Other than that play, his regular season coverage numbers have been pretty solid and his preseason numbers are acceptable too, although he did get beaten for this touchdown in his rookie season.
With the Eagles, Brooks only played three defensive snaps, but recorded his first career interception on one of them when he intercepted this hail mary pass to clinch a win over the Giants, comfortably ranging over for an easy play:
Physicality/Penalties
Brooks is another big-hitting safety, as you can see from this clip:
Despite this, he's only been flagged once in an NFL regular season game - for unnecessary roughness on a punt. However, he's been flagged twice for pass interference and once for roughing the passer in preseason action and a lot of the hits on his highlight reel could easily have been flagged for helmet-to-helmet contact, launching or hitting a defenseless receiver.
Ball skills
Brooks showed some decent playmaking ability in college with 10 passes defensed and five interceptions in his last three seasons. He made a nice diving interception on this play in his senior year:
However, his hands let him down sometimes. Here he dropped a potential interception in the end zone, one of four he dropped in his senior year alone:
Run defense
Brooks regularly comes up into the box to contribute to the running game. However, he will at times overrun plays or take bad angles where trying to avoid blockers.
Having entered the season with just 1.5 tackles for loss in his career, he had eight tackles for loss as a senior.
Tackling
As noted, Brooks is a big hitter and he also displays aggression when wrapping up in the open field:
His style can be a little reckless sometimes as he will miss tackles because he goes for the big hit or comes up too fast:
He's only missed a few tackles in his limited regular season action but has had several more in preseason when required to play more.
Brooks has shown a good knack for forcing fumbles over the past few seasons and will often try to rip the ball out when making a tackle.
Blitzing
Brooks only had one sack in college, but has been a productive blitzer at the NFL level, with that being an aspect of his game that's been praised by his coaches.
He has generated pressure at a pretty consistent rate when blitzing and he had two sacks in preseason action. Here's an example of him applying pressure on a blitz up the middle:
Special teams
Brooks has been a core special teamer with the Ravens and Eagles. In fact, that's basically all he's done over the past two seasons. He has eight special teams tackles in regular season or preseason action while contributing on a variety of units.
Here's an example of him making a tackle in kick coverage.
Here's another one. On this play, Brooks (#29) forces a fumble:
Brooks does not have any experience as a return man.
Instincts
Brooks is regarded as having good awareness and anticipation and does a good job of reading plays in front of him. He sniffs out the pass to the back here and closes to blow it up for a loss:
Attitude
Scouts have praised Brooks for his toughness and his coaches praised his leadership and maturity while at FSU. He doesn't appear to have any off-field issues.
Injuries
Brooks injured his ACL and MCL towards the end of his rookie season and hasn't seen much action on defense since his return. He was also slowed by a hand injury and a hamstring issue over the past few years and missed time with a concussion as a senior.
Scheme Fit
Brooks' obvious fit if he were to find his way into the Jets' rotation would be as a third safety that could play deep in coverage packages, enabling the starters to man up with tight ends or slot receivers. However, he has adequate versatility to provide in the box cover as well.
Conclusions
When this deal was announced, the media reported as if Brooks was being acquired because the Jets need a third safety and perhaps as a replacement for the injured Rontez Miles. However, Brooks is little more than a special teamer who never really got much of a chance to live up to his potential.
The Jets are obviously looking for athletic safeties to contribute on special teams with current second stringers Robenson Therezie and Shamarko Thomas fitting that mold much better than the departing veteran Ronald Martin.
Brooks will be added in to that mix, but won't automatically have a spot waiting for him. Instead it's more of an upside play. In that respect, it's a bit of a disappointing return for Dexter McDougle, although McDougle had literally no trade value whatsoever as recently as three weeks ago, so bringing in another athletic player that might contribute and freeing up some room to carry some more promising younger cornerbacks seems logical enough.
We'll be back to take an in-depth look at Kony Ealy tomorrow.