Mandrell Desir set up for a big leap or a big letdown by Bradyn Welch-Joiner

There’s nothing like hyping up your teammates before the season comes around. This time of year, at the start of fall camp, everyone is ready to break out; everyone is in the best shape of their life. And yet, not everyone is a “first-round draft pick, no-brainer,” as transfer center Bradyn Welch-Joiner dubbed Mandrell Desir on Friday. 

Day 3 of fall camp was the first time players put on shells, and unless the pads are on, offensive and defensive linemen can’t get much work done. It seems they did on Friday, with Norvell and Welch-Joiner praising a “twitchy,” “fast,” and “strong” defensive line. Welch-Joiner, though, went a step further than his head coach, hailing Desir as a “first-round draft pick no-brainer.” 

As a true sophomore, Desir won’t be eligible to enter the 2027 NFL Draft, but his 6.5-sack freshman season almost certainly put him on NFL radars. It also forced Florida State to pay a pretty penny to retain him and his twin brother Darryll, who both entered the transfer portal this offseason before circling back to Tallahassee. 

Even with a productive first-year, Desir’s game had too many holes to feel so confident about his NFL future. On tape, I didn’t see a budding first-round talent. So, Welch-Joiner is either telegraphing a major leap from Desir, or he’s raising expectations for his young teammate and setting him up for a major letdown. 

Mandrell’s Desir’s first-round hype is a bit premature

Mandrell Desir was highly productive last season. His 24 pressures led the Florida State defense, despite him playing the 12th most snaps. His 6.5 sacks also led the team. However, by pass-rush win rate, he was just fourth at 9.3%, and his 25 percent missed-tackle rate was second-highest (per PFF). 

Those are just the numbers; the film tells more of the story. As an interior pass-rusher in Tony White’s 3-3-5 structure, Desir has a great combination of quickness and length at 6-foot-4, 270 pounds. He’s quick off the line of scrimmage and has a fairly advanced array of pass-rush moves, relying most on a rip move to get skinny and penetrate between the guard and tackle. That’s the good. 

The bad is what happens when he doesn’t get home. Because of those aggressive pass-rush moves, Desir often ends up on his backside. He needs to improve his balance and his pad level, because when he lost last season, he lost badly. There’s also the issue of how he can add more strength with a frame that appears to be relatively maxed out and still retain his quickness, which is his most bankable NFL trait. 

Then there’s the run game, and the losses there are just as bad. As a pass-rusher, Desir is a terror for guards or centers to handle, but when they get their hands on him, it’s over. He can’t anchor against double teams, and because of that deficiency, he often takes chances and turns the play into TFL-or-bust, leaving the run-lane wide open.

In this case, he (No. 93) didn’t even take a chance, and he still ends up picking himself off the turf as Virginia’s J’Mari Taylor takes a trip to the end zone from 31 yards out. 

In Desir’s defense, the 12 snaps he saw at nose last season were 12 too many. But it’s not like he was taking on a double-team there. Those issues are just as pronounced as a three-technique. And, this year he won’t have 6-foot-5, 337-pound Darrell Jackson Jr. there to eat up blockers, so there will be more double-teams directed his way. 

Maybe Welch-Joiner has already seen the improvements in fall camp

That’s a fairly negative assessment of a player who was one of Florida State’s most important retentions of the offseason, I know. That’s simply with the framing of a “first-round draft pick no-brainer.” 

Desir is a good player who, with a slightly more nuanced pass-rush plan, more strength and better leverage to help convert speed to power, and better hand usage to keep heavier offensive linemen off his body, could reasonably become one of the better defensive linemen in college football and an alluring NFL prospect.  

That’s significant, but it’s not a huge offseason to-do list. Welch-Joiner may have already seen those improvements and has to deal with them every day at practice. If that’s the case, then get ready for a huge year from him and the entire FSU defensive line. 

If not, then Welch-Joiner just got a bit carried away and put unrealistic expectations on a good player who may never have elite upside.

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