It wasn’t perfect for Los Angeles Chargers right tackle Joe Alt in his NFL debut, but it was darn close. The first impressions of the No. 5 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft showcased a player who could rapidly evolve into one of football’s elite offensive tackles.
Success was supposed to take a little bit of time for Alt. Moving from left to right tackle usually isn’t a linear path, yet his production against Maxx Crosby and the veteran-laden Las Vegas Raiders pass rush showed minimal holes in Alt’s armor. Let’s peel the layers back on the afternoon that was for Alt, who failed to allow a QB hit or sack in 29 snaps in pass pro.
A focal point of Alt’s evaluation out of Notre Dame was his ability to sink and drive through his lower half at 6-foot-8. It’s sensational to watch at his size, where despite Alt’s massive frame, he consistently is the lowest man along the line of scrimmage when attempting to establish leverage. He rarely exposes his chest as a surface area to target, and his technical ability at such a young age (21 years old) is far beyond his years.
Here, Alt and Crosby get into a little shadowboxing early in the rep where the other is looking for a move to be made, then countered. Alt is patient up top while his lower half shuffles and maintains position. By the time Crosby looks to engage, Alt simply rides him out behind the pocket and out of the play. It’s high-level stuff from Alt, and considering the Chargers left him on an island against one of the NFL’s elite, it should tell you all you need to know about their confidence in the first-year tackle.
This is where we start playing some ball, folks. You want to talk about completely erasing an edge rusher from a play? This is All-Pro type stuff from Alt.
The goal of a rep in pass pro is to ultimately stop the momentum of the defender in front of you. By doing so, engaging and walking your hips to the opponent’s will take away their leverage, stop their momentum, and in turn, stop their legs. By doing so, as Alt did here, Crosby is left standing straight up (with zero leverage) where he resorts to leaving the ground in an attempt to get his hands in a throwing lane.
From Alt’s perspective, you simply can't do it any better. And considering Crosby’s alignment at the snap (wide-nine) outside of the in-line TE, the ability for Alt to take on contact, sink and drive his hips through contact, and extend through his upper half is pass protection personified. To win a rep like this against Crosby while learning a new position in just his first NFL start is flat-out sensational.
Alt’s ability to sink in his lower half is exemplified here to a T. At his height, the ability of Alt to reduce the surface area in which opponents can target is excellent.
As he showed at Notre Dame, the technical floor in Alt’s game sets the stage for a player whose ceiling at the position is as lofty as any tackle in football. Then you add in the movement skills and the football IQ to identify stunts and twists up front, and the full picture begins to paint itself for Alt.
In this rep, it’s really a simple approach from Crosby. It’s a bull rush, where the goal is to bully Alt into the lap of Justin Herbert by winning straight through his chest plate. While Crosby has had immense success in the past with his bull rush and will continue to manhandle NFL tackles across the league with his deep repertoire off the edge, Crosby met his match in Week 1. The above rep is about as clean as you’ll find in football when sinking, anchoring, and countering power.
For Alt, Week 1 was about as good of a first impression as you could ask for. Now, it’s about continuing to progress and improve as the Chargers look to move to 2-0 this Sunday in Carolina. With Rashawn Slater on one side and Alt on the other, it’s an awfully good time to be Herbert.
