Each NFL team has to navigate a delicate balancing act when building its offensive line. The easiest way to acquire talent is to use high-draft teams and hire the best free agents. But doing this repeatedly can lead to an unbalanced list and an unsustainable salary cap.
The other, more difficult route, is to find and guide potential customers under the radar with the features to get started. This can give you a solid depth in the short term and a low-cost start in the middle and long term – as well as allowing the team to use premium resources to address other positions.
The New York Giants have tried both tactics in recent years with decidedly … mixed success.
The trick to using the second method of building an offensive line, employed by the Green Bay Packers to achieve solid success with players like David Bakhtiari, is to identify those potential players. This year, South Carolina playmaker Sadarius Hutcherson could be one of those players. The red shirt senior is an experienced striker who served in the offensive formation. He also has intriguing athletic characteristics like a former tight end, defensive and basketball player who appeared twice on the pre-season “Freaks” list for his strength and explosiveness in the lower body.
Prospectus: Sadarius Hutcherson
Watched games: vs. Florida (2019), vs. Alabama (2019), vs. Texas A&M (2019), vs. Texas A&M (2020)
Red flags: none
Measurable
Height: 6040 (6 feet-4)
Weight: 320 pounds
Initial career: 29
Quick Summary
Best: Size, power, versatility, competitive strength
Worse: Zone lock, play in space
Projection: A G / T backup utility with a head start as a guard in a power lock scheme.
Game Tape
Full report
South Carolina’s Sadarius Hutcherson is a strong, powerful but athletic player. Hutcherson has experience with both the left and right guard, as well as the left tackle. He feels more at home in the guard, where his athleticism is better than average. Hutcherson has good snap speed, wasting little time on his passing series or running blocks.
Hutcherson shows good athletics in protecting passes in the guard position, capable of mirroring most in-house runners, as well as more than enough strength to anchor against runners. He usually plays with a good level of cushion and leverage and is able to swing the defenders back on their heels as they unfold their hips and explode in their block. Hutcherson shows good use of his hand and usually tries to gain an internal advantage.
He shows a good knowledge of blocking schemes and is rarely caught off guard by games along the offensive line. He routinely handles maneuvers and twists well, not allowing himself to be occupied and creating a free rusher.
Hutcherson has excellent power as a race blocker and is able to open holes or create movement along the line of scrimmage. He is at his best downhill block in strength sprint moves, particularly in man interval schemes. It is also a capable inner zone blocker, as well as down blocker and pull blocker in power run moves.
He shows good competitive stamina throughout the play, routinely supporting his blocks and looking for work if he doesn’t initially have someone to block.
Hutcherson is a very powerful player, but he can be pressured if he loses his advantage at the start of the snap. He may also be prone to letting his hands go, which limits his ability to control defenders, as well as making calls more likely. Hutcherson is a good athlete for the position, but he is an inaccurate blocker in motion. He strives to catch players when blocking in space or as a blocker in screen games.
Overall score: 6.5 – A low-ceilinged but high-floor player who should be a reliable backup in several positions. It has the potential to start, but it depends on the scheme.
Projection
Hutcherson projects himself as a public service helper early in his career, with the advantage of being a holder of a system that takes advantage of his impressive power. He has experience starting on the left guard, right guard and left tackle in college, as well as some experience on the right end as a Jumbo tight end on certain packages. This versatility will certainly be enough to earn him a place in the squad while he works to improve some of his limitations.
Hutcherson has an initial advantage in an attack that uses an energy blocking scheme, with the ability to line up on the left or right guard. Guard is his natural position, where he looks much more comfortable and plays faster than externally. The guard position plays on Hutcherson’s impressive power and snap speed while limiting the amount of area he must cover and does not expose him to nearly as much speed in passing protection as the tackle position.
Coaches will want to work with him to maintain his advantage throughout the game, as well as to gain a more consistent internal advantage with his hands. He has the strength and power to control most defenders at the NFL level, but he will need a more consistent technique to do so. But while he needs work, the tools are there and the coaches who favor the first offenses with an emphasis on strength between tackles are likely to be big fans of Hutcherson.