Syracuse football: 2024 signees who will make the biggest impact as freshmen

There is not a lot of depth on the interior defensive line for the Orange right now. Brown added two edge rushers in the portal and two more from high school, but Watson is the only addition to the interior of the defensive line. 

Redshirt junior Kevin Darton led the team in snaps from the interior and he had six sacks, but he needs somebody to play next to him. Braylen Ingraham only generated three pressures in his 317 snaps and on six stops. He just wasn’t an impactful player as a 6-foot-4 301-pound redshirt junior, so why not give those snaps to Watson? 

Watson comes in at 6-foot-3 285 pounds and can get to the quarterback and collapse the pocket from either the nose or the 3-technique. He is physically ready to compete at the college level and should be given the opportunity to start. 

The only concern is that Darton is only 270 pounds, so Syracuse would have a pretty undersized defensive line that could be run on, but it’s not like Ingraham eating up blockers did anything for the 62nd-ranked run defense that allowed 3.9 yards per carry.