The 2021 season has been a rough one so far for Colorado.
As the team enters its bye week, the Buffs stand at 1-4 and have lost their first two conference games by 20-plus points. It’s no secret that the Buffs’ offensive woes have been their downfall thus far. And those woes have handed a heavy workload to the Colorado defense.
Despite all of the above, linebacker Nate Landman has continued to lead the Buffs’ defense, make plays and build a strong case to NFL teams that he can be a valuable addition to a team come April 2022.
In this edition of the Buffs Film Room, we are going to analyze Landman’s game, his strengths, and what areas can be improved as he continues to make strides towards becoming an NFL player.
The biggest strength of Landman’s game is how quickly and easily he is able to process in the run game. Landman’s key on this play is the left guard. As soon as he starts to pull across the formation, Landman takes note and meets him in the hole to get a nice tackle for loss.
This time against Minnesota, Landman immediately diagnoses run with the zone blocking from the offensive line. The linebacker does a great job of giving the H-back a shoulder shimmy to slip the block and make the stop for a short gain.
This play is designed to go to the field side but the back sees an opening back toward the boundary after receiving the handoff. Landman also notices the cutback lane and is able to use his hands to ensure that the USC left tackle will not block him.
The most impressive and noticeable thing about Landman’s game is how easily the game comes to him. He is able to diagnose plays before they get going and puts himself in a great position to stop big plays before they happen.
Combine Landman’s football intelligence with his relentless pursuit, he often shows how he is able to chase down plays outside of the tackle box.
Janaz Jordan and Carson Wells are the guys I would credit with the stop on this screen. Regardless, Landman plays with a “hair-set-on-fire” mentality and is able to get a big hit on stud running back Isaiah Spiller to finish this play.
Similar to the previous play, this outside zone run probably doesn’t go for a first down anyway but you have to love how Landman plays this. He is able to defeat the block of the right guard and completely lays out to ensure that the run does not go for a first down on 3rd and 11.
Landman plays a much bigger role in this run stuff. Coming from the backside of the defensive formation, Landman’s instincts and ability to read the run looks natural here as he beats the running back to the line of scrimmage for a nice stop.
But what about the passing game? Because of Landman’s role in the Colorado defense we hardly ever see him in man coverage. But when it comes to zone coverage, Landman showcases his ability and how valuable he is to the Buffs defense.
Those natural instincts we talked about in the run game carry over into the passing game often. When facing play-action, Landman executes the ROBOT technique that was famously taught by Nick Saban. Not to mention how often he plays the middle-of-the-field role when the Buffs play out of Tampa 2. He never appears lost in zone coverage and is constantly looking for the next threat out of the backfield, in the flat, or the crosser coming in front or behind him.
We talked about this play when we recapped the Buffs near-upset of Texas A&M in Week 2, but it’s worth mentioning in this context. Landman is playing the hook/curl zone in the middle of Colorado’s Cover 3 defense here. This is textbook zone coverage for a linebacker. He is able to easily read the quarterback’s eyes and nearly comes up with a game-changing turnover.
Room for Improvement
So where can Landman improve as he gets ready to play his final seven games in a Buffs uniform?
As briefly mentioned above, seeing Landman in coverage more often would give evaluators a better idea of what he can do in those situations. We may have to wait until the Senior Bowl, NFL Combine and other pre-draft events to see exactly how Landman performs in those areas.
While Landman is particularly strong when playing the run, he does end up on the ground equally as much and has developed a recent tendency of missing tackles. This isn’t to say that that area of his game is a concern at this moment, it’s just that Landman is absolutely able to leave some plays on the field that would further showcase his ability.
Take this play for instance. Landman is able to evade another block from an offensive lineman and navigates through the trash well to get to the ball carrier.
These instances happen extremely frequently but Landman isn’t always able to finish the play.
Where does Landman’s draft stock currently stand?
It’s tough to say exactly where Landman would go if the NFL Draft happened to be tomorrow. Pro Football Network currently has Landman as buried in their mock draft machine as the 330th overall prospect. Meanwhile, The Draft Network doesn’t even have Landman in their players available in their mock draft machine.
Personally, when I think about Landman’s draft stock I think about someone like Josey Jewell, who was picked 106 overall by the Denver Broncos in the 2018 NFL Draft. Jewell was a player that also was the unquestioned leader of a talented defense but showed similar deficiencies to Landman.
Given that the Broncos have shown a tendency to scout their own backyard well, issues with depth at the position and the fact that they are going to have to make a decision on re-signing linebackers Josey Jewell and Alexander Johnson; Landman could fit in nicely with the Broncos.
While the Buffs’ primary focus is going to be stacking wins and making noise within the Pac-12 as they enter conference play, monitoring Landman’s draft stock will become something we talk about more as we count down the days to the 2022 NFL Draft.
