Lions preseason film breakdown: Solving the Josh Paschal puzzle

What will Josh Paschal’s role be this year? Breaking down his preseason film to find out.

Former second-round draft pick Josh Paschal starting and playing throughout the entirety of the Detroit Lions 24-23 win against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 2 of the NFL preseason caught a lot of eyeballs and Twitter fingers. You could argue Paschal was the second most valuable player getting snaps against the Chiefs aside from starting nickelback Amik Robertson. Paschal was on the field for 28 of the Chiefs’ 59 offensive snaps to benefit his development. It should not sound alarms bells, despite playing in the fourth quarter.

Paschal followed that up by playing 19 snaps against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3 of the NFL preseason. We know now there was no reason for fear, as Paschal’s roster spot was always in the clear despite being the only member of the Lions’ likely top seven defensive line rotation of players to play in the preseason.

Paschal’s professional development has dealt with numerous injury setbacks. A lingering core muscle injury from college zapped his rookie training camp and the first six games. A knee injury a month into his return knocked him out another two games (and his snap usage when he returned was drastically down). Finally, a knee injury in last year’s opener against the Chiefs landed him on injured reserve, causing him to miss five games, and throwing his second-year developmental curve off kilter. So given that Paschal has only played 22 career games (out of 34 possible) and that he is a versatile player, the snaps against the Chiefs and Steelers were beneficial for a still inexperienced rotational player.

Paschal’s approach to defensive line play will always be built on the foundation of his play style being a cross between X-Men’s The Juggernaut and “Wreck it Ralph.” The reliable traits that Paschal has displayed thus far—particularly down the stretch last season while Alim McNeill was injured—is his ability to defend the run as a defensive end in base formations and his ability to bull rush and lead twists and stunts while kicked inside over the guard.

This season, he has plenty of room to expand his game particularly as a pass rusher. It’s important to remain realistic that Paschal will never develop into a bendy and explosive edge rusher beating offensive tackles around the corner, like perhaps a James Houston. They are different players physically. The skillset expansion, under new defensive line coach Terrell Williams, likely includes ways to defeat blocks with improved and active, hand usage and in the same vein, deploying counter moves once his power moves (e.g. bull rush) have been stalled. Coming off the bench in Year 3, the key for Paschal will be efficient snaps (30 or less per game) and an efficient plan when attacking offensive linemen. Maximize the snaps on the field and don’t get stuck in the mud mid-play.

In the selected 15 clips below, I’ll highlight what Josh Paschal did well and where he’s leaving room for improvement to paint an accurate picture of where Paschal is as a player.

Textbook run defense as a defensive end by Paschal. He controls the right tackle by keeping a powerful base, gaining leverage by shooting his hands to the inside chest plate of the opponent and not losing ground along the line of scrimmage to be able to disengage and take down the running back while maintaining outside containment.

Paschal is a lunchpail player, but as he showed in Week 1 last year with the big fourth down stop against the Chiefs, he can make the occasional splashy play like this timely forced fumble. Unblocked, as the Chiefs are setting up a failed screen pass, Paschal doesn’t hesitate and he just attacks, while unleashing his 91st percentile 38-inch vertical jump explosiveness and pokes the ball out of the quarterback’s possession.

The Lions can always rely on Paschal’s hustle and upper body strength (89th percentile 30 bench press reps of 225-pounds pre-draft). Here he fights through the left tackle and chip-help via the running back to chase after Mahomes on the rollout.

Similar to the previous play, Paschal utilizes his motor and forceful nature to bull rush his way into shrinking the pocket for Patrick Mahomes and forcing him into a small window to step into the throw and primarily use his upper body on the incompletion.

The highlight for the Chiefs, and a majority of the NFL, for the second week of the preseason was this Mahomes behind the back pass. There wasn’t much else you could ask Paschal to do on this play as he slams Travis Kelce into some lockers like he owes him lunch money and gains ground on Mahomes.

Lined up against the left guard to start the play, Paschal comes tight off the backside of the crashing defensive end on an end/tackle twist to force the left guard to grab and hold him from a clean path to the quarterback. It’s promising to see Paschal capitalizing as the looper on this defensive line twist, as he is often utilized as the lead crasher to eat up blockers and free up other players.

Paschal works to the outside shoulder of the left guard on this play, which is an encouraging development. It could have resulted in a sack or quarterback hit had the secondary held up a little longer (Kindle Vildor did make a great effort to force the incompletion)

Often times, Pachal chooses violence, which he does on this play after being left unblocked and collides with the lead blocker.

This was one of my favorite Paschal plays of the preseason. I’m encouraged whenever he throws a move that isn’t a bull rush. As others along the defensive line will be receiving extra attention, and he’ll need to capitalize on his one-on-ones like this. The pull-slide pass rush move was an Aaron Donald staple and is one I think Paschal can continue to hone in on and make even more efficient use of.

Watching this play I can hear former ESPN NFL analyst Tom Jackson yelling “he got… JACKED UP.” Steelers recent first-round draft pick—RT Broderick Jones—is a 6-foot-5 311-pound freak of nature, but on this play, Paschal gets upfield and shoots his hands inside in a hurry and displaces Jones like a Mall Santa Claus on December 26. These are the plays Paschal makes that show why he was a second-round draft pick.

This is Paschal, backside on the goal line, reading and reacting quickly, and taking advantage of being unblocked for the tackle for loss.

Rookie Mekhi Wingo does a good job defeating the left guard but Paschal’s effort on the backside (camera left) closes the cutback rushing lane down to nothing.

Paschal works the outside shoulder of the offensive guard, and keeps his hands extended to keep the guard from gaining leverage on him, and he helps to collapse the pocket on Justin Fields. Often times, Fields’ suffocating in the pocket can be his own doing but on this play it was a good overall pass rush from the entire Lions defensive front.

Despite the fumble, here is an example of Paschal displaying a good initial bull rush but the offensive tackle recovers well and Paschal gets stuck in the mud. Here is where Paschal needs to maintain active hands and have a counter move readily available.

Just like the previous play, Paschal has a good initial bull rush to get the offensive lineman on skates but he needs to execute a move to more efficiently defeat the blocker and disrupt the pass. It’s why I’ve highlighted previous pass rush techniques in this article. He has other moves, I promise you he is not Seth Rogen’s character in “Knocked Up” with his dancefloor dice roll move. At times, he’s doing the bull rush thing too much, but it’s not all he’s got. I’m hoping to see more moves build off of the aggressive bull rush this season.

This is by far the deepest defensive front of the Dan Campbell-Brad Holmes era and the Lions will rotate up to eight players deep along the defensive line. Paschal’s development and production will benefit this season from lower snap usage, tutelage under Terrell Williams, an improved secondary, and a lot of single blocked situations.

But he’ll also have a lot of selfless responsibilities. Paschal may lead twists and stunts to occupy blockers and free up other players for free rushing lanes. He may be asked, at times, to focus on maintaining his pass rush lane by collapsing and muddying the pocket with his bull rush. This allows players like Aidan Hutchinson to finish off plays with no escape hatch available to the quarterback. Paschal’s punch-you-in-the-mouth attitude will help him thrive in his third season, and he will not be asked to do too much outside of his strengths.

At under 6-foot-3 and 274 pounds, Paschal isn’t an every down defensive end or an every down defensive tackle, but on any down, is a versatile dirty work player that is a force multiplier for the rest of the defensive line.