NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 307. Early Interior Defensive Line Rankings for 2025 NFL Draft

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

0:00 - Intro 9:30 - Jamaree Caldwell, Oregon 14:55 - Elijah Roberts, SMU 19:45 - Deone Walker, Kentucky 25:10 - Jordan Phillips, Maryland 30:45 - Omarr Norman-Lott, Tennessee 36:55 - Alfred Collins, Texas 43:15 - Joshua Farmer, Florida State 52:35 - Darius Alexander, Toledo 1:04:00 - Jared Ivey, Ole Miss 1:07:15 - Shemar Turner, Texas A&M 1:14:45 - Tyleik Williams, Ohio State 1:21:05 - TJ Sanders, South Carolina 1:28:55 - Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M 1:35:50 - Derrick Harmon, Oregon 1:43:10 - Walter Nolen, Ole Miss 1:49:50 - Kenneth Grant, Michigan 1:54:55 - Mason Graham, Michigan

Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. Trevor Sick and McConnell Rogers here with you guys with a very exciting positional ranking episode. Today we're talking interior defensive linemen. If you've heard us or really any other draft analysts out there tease the rankings here for this class in the interior defensive line you know it's stacked this is where one of the strengths of the 2025 NFL draft lie and I'm excited to break it down we're going to give you each our top 15s reveal them to one another for the first time if this is your first time watching these episodes we do the rankings and I have no idea who Connor has in his top 15 or the

order which always makes for a fun show. Connor, I feel like our chemistry is going to be on point since we are matching color-wise here for this show. Didn't plan this. Just want everybody to know. Yes, we did. You're right. We did. It's the uniform.

We're like, all right, what uniform are we wearing today for the podcast? Oh, man. Yeah, it's good to be equally as handsome good to be uh equally as handsome with you here my friend yes this is this is phenomenal we are dressed to impress for the maybe the best position group of the entire draft we sunk weeks into this literally we we were talking about this at least the week before the super bowl and we had hoped to record this during super bowl week we already went through the whole hamster on a wheel wi-fi situation and just like it's just it was a lot going on we're like let's

go home we'll give ourselves a couple extra days and it was worth it because we're each gonna do top 15s and we watch more players than that so we'll talk about maybe a couple guys on the outside looking in and we were kind of joking before we even pressed record. We didn't even finish. We didn't even come close to finishing this group, so this is another early positional rankings. But I think you'll see, God, it feels like at least 30 draftable D-line in this class. I wouldn't be surprised if this group exceeds that. Yeah.

You told me that you watched 18 total interior defense linemen. I got to 20. And to be honest with you, there's an easy four or five, six guys that I didn't get to yet that I really want to. Now I watched a lot of the names that I figured were going to be in my top 15 for this episode, but Hey, a guy that I could watch who I haven't watched yet. Maybe they'll sneak in. Maybe they would be somewhere between like 12 to 15, something like that when it's all said and done. But we think that we got the majority of these guys. Now, to start this podcast and preface it, what I want to do is sort of explain to you guys and be transparent with you with sort of where I'm coming from for this episode, because we're on the cusp of doing

something really, really cool at PFF. And that is really categorizing players at positions that are even more detailed than just, okay, for example, oh, they're a wide receiver. Well, what kind of a wide receiver are they? Are they an X receiver? Are they a Z? Are they a slot? When it comes to offensive line, are they a zone blocking offensive lineman, a man slash gap scheme blocking offensive lineman? When it comes to pass rushers, edge rushers, are you more of a 4-3 hand in the dirt? Are you more of a stand-up outside linebacker? And then specifically for this episode here, interior defensive line, to me,

can mean three different subcategories of the position. Nose tackle, three technique defense tackle, and three-four defensive end. And so I have split how I rank and grade these players on film into those three categories. Now, Connor and I were chatting before the show, you know, I was kind of getting him caught up on all that. And like him for a long time, I have always noted these in my scouting reports, but now I'm truly like contextualizing

exactly what these guys do well. And my grading for them is different. The reason why we're doing that is because at pff we're trying to give you more uh again like contextual scouting reports on players to uh potentially even give you some team big boards hopefully this season i'd love to get into that and so it's like oh okay well you know for example the the tampa bay buccaneers do they need a defensive tackle well i don't know they don't need just any defensive tackle you don't just need like any nose tackle okay they want more of a three technique penetrating defensive tackle or something like that.

I'm just making this up off the top of my head, but we're trying to do things even more detailed, even more team specific when it comes to our rankings here. And I know that's kind of a long spiel, but I wanted to say that to you guys because I merged all three categories into my top 15, which we'll talk about here on the show, but you're going to hear me reference, okay, I may have this guy ranked 11th, for example, but he's my third best 3-4 defense event. So if you're a team that's running an odd front and

you're watching and listening to the show and you're thinking, okay, that's the kind of player we would want, you got to think, I'll probably have that player higher on like a team-specific big board when we start to talk about a lot more of those things in March and April when we get there so that's sort of an exciting change that we're going through at PFF that I'm very excited about and sort of introing here on this show but wanted to make sure I said that up front because I'm going to be referencing that throughout the show I think it's phenomenal I think it's so important. The more I didn't realize this until I started ranking over 200 or 250 players, how it's so difficult sometimes to like to have that context, right?

When you're watching a guy, I really realized this when I do obviously a lot of jet specific stuff and a lot of then draft national perspective stuff. And you really realize you'll be watching a player and you're like, God, I love this guy. Like, I think he's a,

you know, third round pick. And then you realize there are teams that would never take them. They would never take them. And it's okay to have rankings like we do, right? Top 15. This is just by the best players but I sit in that like when I

write my synopsis line you gotta paint the picture of what a guy is is he a nose tackle shade nose tackle like you said Trev is he a 3-4 defensive end is he gonna be a stand-up rusher that like man I could probably only play him on passing downs right now the context of what a player is and what schemes he fits and how he fits and how to maximize his talent especially on the defensive line group is so so important that it's fun to sit here and do the top 15s and we're really lucky that we get to do it from the broad picture like hey we're the gm of every team in this situation right i do think it's great for the listener to show what the guy's actual role will be. Yep. And obviously, you know, I'm not or we're not reinventing the wheel here, right?

You and I have talked about that's sort of how we've done scouting for a long time, making sure that we note that in these guys' final evals too, I think you put it beautifully, paint the correct picture of who this player could be at the NFL level. We're just getting more purposeful with it in how we categorize these players. And when we get to the PFF draft guide and we start doing team-specific top 100s and things like that,

this is the stuff that's going to go into it, these subcategories of exactly where these guys are ranked. So with all that being said, let's get right to it. Let's do as we always do, start at number 15. Let's go 15 through 11. Connor, I'll have you read those guys off, and then we'll sort of pick a couple of guys and chat about it there. So 15 for me, Kentucky's Deion Walker,

which I'm sure we'll have a long combo about that. 14, Joshua Farmer from Florida State. 13, Jordan Phillips from Maryland. 12, Omar Norman Lott from Tennessee, which, man, having Omar Norman Lott at 12 just shows you how ridiculous this class is with the kind of year this guy had. I mean, my goodness.

And then 11, I mean, when I say favorite, I don't mean the best. There's just something about him you love. Maybe my favorite defensive player in the draft, Jamari Caldwell from Oregon. Damn, he was the next guy on my list. I didn't get to hear that before we started recording. I was like, it'll be really good for the final rankings. I'll talk about Caldwell here in a bit.

And ironically, Trevor, he was the last guy I watched for this exercise. He was literally out of 18 players. He was the last guy I watched. I exercise. He was literally out of 18 players. He was the last guy I watched. I'll talk about it in a moment. He is just perplexing at 342 pounds, the things he could do. It's amazing. So I honestly wanted to have him even higher than 11.

It just goes to show you how good this class is. So a lot of the names are sort of similar in our list, and I'm actually kind of surprised how similar they are here but let's start with Caldwell because he's the one guy who I don't have on my list who you do and you said that he was just very unique he was a player that is probably going to be obviously not the best he's not quite in your top 10 but a favorite of yours as we go throughout this draft process and somebody that you'll probably talk about a lot on radio or tv appearance where they go who's one of your guys it feels like am I am I saying that correctly that he's probably going to be one of those guys for you without a doubt man he's to put it in perspective like we all have

that one friend that's uh that's jumbo sized and at the wedding or college whatever it was somehow they just they're a better dancer than everyone else they move better than everyone else like you look at them you're just like how do you do it that's watching jamari caldwell six foot two i'm so mad at him i'm so mad i didn't get to this guy 342 pounds he's sawed off he's got 32 and a quarter inch arms so he doesn't have long arms all right he is and here's the thing this year zero sacks two quarterback hits 22 hurries he did knock down four passes he had a forced fumble in 2023 with Houston he had six and a half sacks so he's gotten to the quarterback before I think it with Oregon a little bit

different role how blue collar they needed him to be. I mean, incredibly beefy head to toe, true nose tackle, like true. I can to gap. I can eat space. I can clog. I can make life easier for everyone else around me. He's shockingly quick off the ball. And I think that I really opened my eyes to it at the senior bowl where I'm like,

that is one of the biggest humans on the field. And he's flying off the ball and you turn on the tape and it's the same thing. He's got a deep bag of pass rush moves. Like this guy tries stuff. And I think you see a better array of those moves at Houston because he's somebody that, once again, like at Oregon, they really needed him to be like the meat and potatoes in the middle kind of guy. But he's got really, really active hands.

They're always fighting through the rush. And he's really smart where when he has a free hand through the rush and he knows that time has kind of run out, he gets his arm up into passing lanes. That's how he knocked down four passes this year. He makes it really difficult for quarterbacks to kind of throw through those windows. You watch the tape against Wisconsin, the run defense snaps. It's elite run clocking, like as good as you'll see from any player in this entire draft this year. He has that kind of size and anchor ability to just be a force

in the middle that you're not going to move me. I'm not always going to shoot off the ball and, you know, be this seven sack kind of player, but you are not going to move me. Obviously, the length is very, very limited. The pass rush production did dip a little bit this year. But Caldwell is, you know, to go back to your opening statement on this thing, he is a true nose tackle and I can put him on the field on rundowns right away but I saw some juice as a rusher that he's not a zero in that department I'm fascinated to see what he can develop in that area because he tries things he's got active hands but I just

love the size I actually am kind of fascinated and I understand Dion Walker's five inches taller but it's fascinating to me nobody talks about Caldwell and his size and mass, and everybody's infatuated with Walkers when Caldwell uses his much better. Honestly, until you got to the end there where you started talking about pass rush a little bit, I was like,

you sure you're not reading Kenneth Grant's scouting report? You sure you didn't mix those up? You know, like you talked about the dancer's feet, how well he moves for a guy his size. He's a great run defender. So as somebody who really only saw him at the Senior Bowl and what I saw at the Senior Bowl, I really, really liked. I have not gotten to him yet.

Honestly, the second this episode stops, I'm going to watch him. And I'm going to text you or I'm going to put in the comments here on this episode whenever it drops, be like, all right, this is where I would have Caldwell. So, all right, maybe it's not exactly after that because we're recording this one late, but it'll come soon. That sounds like a player that I would be extremely interested in. Obviously, you know, the arm length is somewhat of an issue,

but when you play as an interior defensive lineman, if you're playing the nose tackle position, it's not the worst thing in the world. It's really not. So man, that's exciting. Just to hear you talk about Caldwell like that is super exciting. So we have a couple of guys who are in similar spots, actually.

The exact same spots, which I'm kind of shocked about. So I want to read my 15 through 11 and then pick out a couple that we need to talk about here. 15, I also have Deion Walker. What are the odds of that? It does not stop there, brother.

This is ridiculous. 14, I have Elijah Roberts from SMU. So I didn't get to see him yet. I do want to talk about him because some people might be like, hold up, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought this was the interior defensive line episode. I'll get to that in a second because I do think he is a 3-4 defensive end, which I categorize as an interior position.

So I have him at number 14. Number 13, I have Jordan Phillips. Number 12, I have Omar Nur-Elad. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And then number 11, I have Alfred Collins from Texas. So we'll talk about Alfred Collins a little bit more in a second. I do want to touch briefly on Walker, Phillips, and Omar Norman-Lotz,

sort of where we have them because we have them in the same spots. But before we get to that, I do want to talk about Elijah Roberts, who was one of the highest graded defensive linemen that we had at PFF this past season. And when you look at the two-year sample size, because we talk about that here a lot on this show, two-year sample sizes mean a lot because the bigger the sample size, the more of a projectable kind of picture that you have for a lot of these players.

Roberts, first of all, four-star defensive end from Miami, Florida, commits to Miami at a high school, dreamed of playing for the Hurricanes, ended up staying there for three years, and he played in 20 games. We only had one start while he was at Miami. So he transfers over to SMU. He's a two-year starter for them in the 2023 and 2024 season. He was a second-team all-conference player that first year honorable mention this past season.

Over the last two years, okay? 92.7 pass rush grade. 94.0 pass rush grade on true pass sets. 22.1 pass rush win percentage. That's 99th percentile for where he's playing. And then the run defense grades are good as well. 84.3 over the last two years. He has a 0.30 wins above replacement average, which is very high for an interior defensive lineman.

So an extremely productive player. And the measurables kind of say to me that he's more of a 3-4 defensive end than he is an edge rusher. Six foot three and a fourth, that's 43rd percentile for those one-gapping defensive ends. But then he's 200 and 90 pounds. He has almost 34-inch arm length, and he's got massive hands. So when you watch this dude line up at SMU,

he'll often be in a three-point or four-point stance, but his feet will be square. His shoulders will be completely square. His body will be completely square at the line of scrimmage in that four-eye technique just inside of where the offensive tackle is. And he wins so much with power. He has got a dense body. Go watch, I think it's the BYU game for him. Let me check. Is it the first game I watched?

Yeah, the BYU game. You watch the first quarter of the BYU game and you go, oh, these offensive tackles aren't ready for Elijah Roberts. And there are so many times when he just, it looks like he barely touches him, but he's got so much strength. These offensive tackles even are going flying. He's actually got a decent amount of pass rush moves as well. He just doesn't finish them as well as he could. So he's got that in his bag. He just needs a little bit more of a pass rushers mentality here. I would say he's explosive, especially for his size in a linear get up the field first step context, but I wouldn't say he's twitchy. You know, like I don't, I don't see that like quick twitch for him in a lot of the other movements. So he's explosive, but he's not twitchy. And again,

that's also why I don't think his best place at the NFL is just going to be as this four, three outside edge type of a player. I think he'll be best when you can move them inside and play him in the inside shoulder of the offensive tackle. So when you do that, I think he'll be best when you can move him inside and play him in the inside shoulder of the offensive tackle. So when you do that, I think he gives you the plus size. He's got the strength to him. My sort of bottom line scouting report for Roberts, who I also really loved at the Shrine Bowl as well. One of the best players that we had all week at Shrine Bowl practices.

Roberts is a strong, well-built defensive lineman who has a lot of experience at different alignments. He likely lacks the length and the twitch and the bend to be a full-time edge player but his size and versatility could play well as a three four defensive end uh and he can move along those gaps there so i see him sort of as an interior player along that regard but i ended up having him at number 14 there somebody that i'm excited to see i got to see him play throughout the year on broadcast but I have not done the deep dive on the film yet and now going in with a look like I kind of expected to watch him for our final

edge rankings and you have him here on the IDL rankings so gonna be kind of interesting to see how that stacks up these players that are in between like that and full transparency like for this exercise I watch both Shamar Turner and Shamar Stewart for this one. Yeah. It's just projecting what they're good at. Like you did in this instance to an NFL role. Yeah. Which is funny, right? It kind of goes into what we were talking about at the top of the show. Shamar Stewart, Shamar Turner, two players who are playing on the same team, same defensive line. They're two totally different players yes but traditionally you categorize them as like these interior defensive linemen and so you know obviously through this exercise and beyond

we're trying to be a little bit more um contextual in how we think they're going to play at the nfl level so i had roberts as my second best three four defensive end here in this class dion walker was third he was my third best and you know just for people to know, Riley Mills from Notre Dame was fourth on this list. So I have four, um, three, four defense events ranked. I didn't get to the final scouting report for Ty Robinson, but I believe he is, he would be the fifth. He'd be in fifth place here from what I saw in the middle of the season, the guy from Nebraska, but let's touch on Deion Walker really quick, because this is somebody from Kentucky junior insane, uh, uh, measurables. Like you mentioned 99th percentile and height at six foot seven and a fourth 97th percentile and weighed at 340 pounds, 93rd percentile and hand size at 10, 30, uh, 10 inches and sorry, 10 and three fourths inches. And then, uh uh 34 and five eighths inch arms which is 90th percentile so

all of his measurables are above the 90th percentile for a defensive tackle and yet here we have him both at number 15 so talk to me about what you saw with dm walker and i'll uh either echo or um bring my own perspective to some of that, what you love about him when you just write things down and look at him is that he is built like a nose tackle. The problem with him is that his tape and ability doesn't translate to what makes a good nose tackle. That was my biggest issue with Deion Walker. I felt like he wants to play more like a three tech quite often. And number one, this is not this extreme, but I think he's the Ollie Gordon of the defensive prospects

where the 2023 tape is just better. And I went into this season expecting Ollie Gordon to potentially be a top five running back. And I went into this season for Dion Walker toordon to potentially be a top five running back and i went into this season for deon walker to establish himself as a top 10 pick top 10 pick and it's just not the tape is not the same he plays high all the time the pad level is just always high and he's six foot seven like that's part of deal here, but you have to be able to control that. I remember we had this combo a lot when Joe Tippman was a center prospect

because there just aren't a lot of centers that are six foot six. And you look at it and you're like, well, is he able to control the pad level? And to Tippman's credit, he was. He just found a way to do it. I haven't seen that from Walker yet where leverage is a serious problem.

I mean, it's a really serious problem where we were borderline laughing at times at the Senior Bowl when Willie Lampkin, who's 270 pounds, would get under Walker's pads and stop him in his tracks. He's given up like 70 pounds there and like handling Deion Walker he gets stuck on blocks like when teams run zone against Kentucky he just he just gets stuck on blocks and can't diagnose the play um I don't see a pass rush plan I don't see refined hands the run stop grade and run stop percentage was both below 50th percentile. Like, listen, this guy I thought was on a promising trajectory from 2023.

It's not over. He can find that again. There's examples of him having this wrecking ball power on the interior. He's got all the natural tools, but it just hasn't translated, Trevor. It hasn't translated where he got better this year, and I didn't think he did. When you watch that senior bowl group, I thought he was one of the more underwhelming guys out of such a standout group. He's going to be drafted on being a ball of clay and a coach thinking they can unlock something in him that we didn't see at Kentucky this year, unfortunately. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that when you look at a player like Deion Walker,

the alluring part is you go like, wow, okay, you're more than just a nose tackle, but he's almost fast forwarding to the more than part. Right. And we still need you to be a nose tackle, like the whole reason why you would be a top 10 pick or you were regarded as one of the best interior defensive linemen in this class is because we would want you to be an absolute boulder first and foremost, anywhere from a zero technique

to a three technique position. And he's not, you mentioned that the pad level and the leverage is a major issue. And then he'll try to sort of like, another thing is hey he's he's 340 pounds but he's kind of got skinny ankles skinny calves you know like his build is is very different and so when that's the case he's top heavy you could say he's top heavy and so again he tries to win fully standing up because he's not really winning with power in the lower

half he's like all right well that's not really how I win anyway. So he just tries to stand straight up and almost like UFC fighter, like box you, right? That's how he's trying to get by you. And that just, it just doesn't really fly as much at the NFL level. And again, like 270 pal, Willie Lampkin showed you that, Hey, when guys play with better technique and they get under your pads, which unfortunately for Walker is too easy, then you become less of an impact player at that point, even with some rare measurables to you. So we sort of see him the same, somebody who I think he's still going to be a mid round pick,

like a third round pick, fourth round pick, something like that. I don't think he's going to go higher than that. I don't, I don't think he's going to be a second round pick. I have a fourth round grade on him. I'll try to be a little go higher than that. I don't, I don't think he's going to be, um, a second round pick. I have a fourth round grade on him. I'll try to be a little bit better about that. I know some of you guys have sort of wanted some context there. So I have early grades that I do on a lot

of these final scouting reports. So I'll try to shout them out whenever I can, but that was sort of my grade with him. I think he's a fourth round type of player. Um, even with the measurables kind of baked into it. What about Jordan Phillips and Omar Norman Lott? Both of us had them at 13 and 12, respectively. You know, I guess I'll start with Jordan Phillips from Maryland, who, extremely powerful player. And when you watch him for a nose tackle, like this is somebody that you want playing the nose tackle position. What I was talking about with Deion Walker,

how we need you to be a nose tackle first, and you need to defend the run first. That is what Jordan Phillips does. He understands the assignment every single time he goes to line up. I mean, he is very low in his stance. The feet are very wide when he is in a four point stance. He is probably the lowest defensive lineman on the field. So we talk about like neutralizing a tush push or a fourth and short third short situation, like put Jordan Phillips in the middle and he'll be able to do it. He is a former weightlift standout, weightlifter and wrestler from his high school days. He was number 51 on Bruce Feldman's college football freaks list.

He has squatted 665 pounds, power cleaned 365, and he's done an overhead press of 365 for two reps just an absolute monster there now talked a little bit earlier about somebody being sawed off i think you mentioned uh jomar caldwell as that that is jordan phillips as well just six foot one and a fourth 16th percentile the weight 318 pounds you love that 81st percentile but then hand size 15th percentile arm length 32 and a fourth 19th percentile Connor the the reason I I see a lot of love out there for Jordan Phillips and I think he's a good player obviously categorized him as a nose tackle here so somebody who's also incredibly young he was only in the 2022 recruiting class spent one year at Tennessee transferred over to

Maryland where he's been a starter over the last two years. He just, he doesn't have a pass rushers mentality and he doesn't have the length to be a pass rusher. So to me, depending on what you really might need from your team, he's again, like a third or fourth round pick, in my opinion, depending on how much you prioritize that. But I just don't think you're really ever going to get much of a pass rush out of Jordan Phillips. If you do, fantastic football player. If you go, he's one of the youngest players in this class.

You know, you trust him explosiveness, some of the hand uses that we have seen from him. You already love the run defense and what he could be as a run defender, but he ain't getting any longer, right? He's not getting any taller. Like those things are going to stay the same and those are going to be a constant there. a run defender but he ain't getting any longer right he's not getting any taller like those things are going to stay the same and those are going to be a constant there and I saw a good football player but I saw a football player who's I feel like ceiling I already see right now because

I don't exactly think that he is going to bud into this great pass pressure so that's why I had him at 13 what about you yeah I think that's pretty fair I mean my synopsis after the strengths and weaknesses just kind of jump ahead I wrote Phillips is a dense nose tackle with mass and power, but loaded with inconsistent tape. He's still figuring out a pass rush plan, but could be a beefy rundown contributor in a limited snap count early on. He's somebody to me that has nose tackle experience,

which not all these guys get. He's got mass. You brought up the background how strong of a guy he is he's got that lower body density where yes like this it's an oak tree like he's got this tree for this dude's calves are my thighs oh yeah it's that it's like the tavandre sweat look where you're just like oh my god you like you can carry around eight people on those legs so that like you like the that's what a nose tackle looks like and there's times where even he could blow up the run with force because of that but he also has a savvy arm over against the run that he does not utilize as a pass rusher like there's times where i'm like oh man he flew

into he he's slow off the ball let me make that clear he'll see it's a run play and it'd be like okay arm over into the backfield for a big play but as a pass rusher like he didn't have a sack these two seasons like for Maryland as a pass rusher it just felt like everything was slow and reactive rather than proactive. It's like he doesn't, he does right now. He does not have the mentality. No, it's,

it's, I don't want to make a mistake. I want to make sure they're not in a, in run mode. I'm going to get off the ball and read everything. Oh, it's a deep drop. Well,

now I'm kind of just going to force my way forward and see what happens. So, but now let me be clear. Like Jordan Phillips is both in our top 15s in a load of class because he has an NFL role right away. You could stick him right at nose or shade nose and say, Hey man, can you two gap for me?

Like, can you just hold the point of attack here and stop the run? And that's why teams will ultimately like him. And I saw him exactly the way you did. I see him as a, as a rotational player at the next level, but one who you're very comfortable with the rotation that he's going to have.

Now, if some people, if some people want to say to me like, Hey, you know, he is one of the younger players in this class. Maryland was just asking him to be a run defender. That pass rush mentality and mindset is going to come.

I go, okay, maybe. Yeah. You, you, you can draft them higher than me that's fine but it's I just I feel like the longer I do this the less I am willing to be like oh we didn't see

this at all in college yeah you're gonna get that at the NFL level it just it's it's so much more rare than we think it is with these players so for, I wanted to see a little bit more of it. And honestly, I liked Caldwell better. Like I thought Caldwell could do all the run defense things Phillips could do. But once in a while, he'll hit a pass rush move. They are like, hey, maybe like I've seen it a couple of times. Yeah. And so I, so I had Jordan Phillips as a number four on my nose tackle rankings.

And then the guy who I had number eight on my three technique rankings is Omar Norman Lott who I had one spot ahead of him and you talk about guys who are sort of built similarly I mean Omar Norman Lott six foot two so he's a little bit taller than Jordan Phillips you know 295 so he's a little bit less in weight but he makes up for that too by the way hey did you see omar norman lot's hand size measurements yeah over 11 11 and an eighth yeah i think that meat hooks would that be the most at the combine no you'd be surprised but it's it's up there where's hand size let me see just overall hand size what do we got cool no it wouldn't be the

most uh yeah we got some freaks but it would be on the first page of mock draftable which so that says a lot big hands jj watt sized hands by the way 11 and 1 8 that's jj what there you got so there's this there's this player pro comp lord um yeah Yeah, Omar Norman Lott, future three-time defensive player of the year. Very casual. And Omar Norman Lott has much longer arms than Jordan Phillips. Now, he's not quite the run defender that Jordan Phillips is. He didn't quite have that strength. But he's got a lot more pass rush chops.

He is, to me, a much better pass rusher. He brings so much to the table in that regard. This is somebody who I have been a big fan of for a long time. I feel like really since, I can't remember if this was summer scouting or just in the middle of the season, I remember us doing an episode and I was like, why are we talking about this guy? Why is nobody talking about Omar Norman Lott? And obviously he gets to go to the Senior Bowl, but he gets hurt on day one,

which is kind of a bummer there. He was at Arizona State for, I believe, three seasons? Three seasons, yeah, including a redshirt season before he went to Tennessee. And I think people might look at him and be like, okay, well, what's up with the lack of production here for him? If you like this player so much, if he's really explosive, if he's got good speed to power, if he's got great leverage, if the hands come up fast and violent, if he's got pass rush moves,

if he has a 97th percentile pass rush win percentage, what's the deal? Where's the production from? Well, Tennessee does that thing where they just sub in three different hockey lines on the defensive line all the time. So this is a player who I do think can be a better pro than in college. And I promise you, I'm not trying to be a hypocrite there. It's different though, because I've seen it with Omar Norman-Lott. I'm not hoping someday we see it. I've already seen it from him. He just didn't get a ton of playing time or I think as much playing time as he deserved

because of how deep Tennessee's rotation was. So this is a player who, again, I always gravitate towards these types of three technique defense tackles. Explosive, naturally low pad leverage, whether he's in a three point or a four point stance, very impressive upper body strength to sometimes bench press offensive lineman back. Even if he loses leverage and pops up pretty quickly, I think he can hold up decently well against double teams. He's got those massive hands to him. Um, I'd love to see him be a little bit more of a finisher when it comes to his pass rush moves. You know, sometimes I'll see like a rip move in there, but it won't be, you know you know it's not coming through it's not like totally violent with

him ripping the arm up and getting clean and getting free if he does that i think that he's going to have even more backfield production and i think about i think that we could talk about him potentially like a guy who i have a little bit higher on these rankings which we'll get to in a guy like tj sanders but because how sanders was much more efficient getting into the backfield clean i have him ranked a little bit higher than I do a guy like Omar Norman-Lott, who I still like quite a bit. Did you see him the same way, or what were the things that you wanted to see for him? I did.

We were joking at the first day of senior bowl practice when we saw him out there, this will be the most football he's played all year. I mean, seriously, Trev, he had 84 snaps against the run this year. 84! Some guys get this year. 84. Some guys get that in two games. I know. Truly. Truly.

So I love all the things you do about him as a pass rusher. I do think the run defense is far from NFL ready. I just saw him on the ground a lot against you know the georgias and the floridas of the world when teams double them like he it's like he doesn't stand a chance out there um man i saw i saw a couple of reps though where he'd get down in like a corkscrew technique where he would put his hands out and he would drop that knee and he would hold the line scrimmage and that gives me hope i agree with you there's definitely definitely inconsistent, but I have hope. I have hope here.

That's fair. There were games this year where he was totally fine against the run. And then there was a handful where I was like, oh man, they're like, they're going at him. And once again, it's you're, you're dealing with an 84 snap run sample size. And the year before it was 82. He just hasn't done it hey he's

going up 86 next year yeah yeah here we go it actually might be the case oh man so yeah the run defense to me it's it's got a little ways to go but you're talking about somebody that just when you let him pin his ears back and go man he just gets off the ball he's got twitch he once again active hands i think which man which he play he plays so low so he rushes so low underneath people to try to swivel through gaps shoot gaps get under pads i mean there's it's like the total inverse of what we just talked about with jordan phillips in my opinion in terms of what they're good at like jordan phillips can you kind of like drop your hips and just hold the point of attack and form a wall?

Omar Norman Lott, it's third, 12. Get your ass out there and just get off the ball and go and disrupt the game, big fella, and he could do it. He made the most of his pass rush opportunities this year. Again, good defensive line coach at the NFL level, and I think there's a world we're talking about him like we're going to talk about TJ Sanders. To me, I think there's a world we're talking about him. Like we're going to talk about TJ Sanders. Cause to me, I think that these guys are built somewhat similarly.

I'd even tell you that Omar even has like more, a little bit more Twitch to him than TJ is, but TJ is just a, he is a smoother, more high IQ back, just always in the backfield type of a player as a pass searching three techniques. So, but we'll talk about sanderson a little bit so i have one more guy here on the top 15 because i dm walker at 15 elijah roberts at 14 jordan phillips 13 omar norman lot 12 and then i had alfred collins from texas at number 11 i have a feeling he's probably going to be in your next five yeah and joshua farmer to me is in my next five as well so all right so you have him at eight let's talk about Collins first and then I've got Farmer at 10 so then we can revisit that because I think that that's pretty close you've got Alfred Collins at number eight here the defensive tackle now from

Texas it wasn't always a defensive tackle but let's talk about him really quick what'd you like about him with uh having him in your top 10 there yeah i mean he's played 64 games over the past five seasons for texas so this guy has played a lot of football and to me he's just a stout run defending defensive lineman that can play both three tech and five tech and has the mass to do so uh he knocked down six passes in 2024. The awareness from him, I thought, was really, really good. He just understands what run games are trying to do to him. He understands when to get his hands up and knock the ball down. He played over 100 snaps at nose tackle in 2024, so I know I said at the top I like him at five tech and three tech but just the fact that he was able to give texas some nose tackle snaps this year i haven't ranked as a nose tackle you do okay that's interesting would you have him more as a three i mean that's kind of the beauty of him

and why i have him high i think he could play all three spots which is okay i don't feel that way about a lot of guys in this class i i thought like five seasons to tape at texas and they were confident enough in this guy to play any role and he never really looked at a place so i will be fully transparent collins to me is a floor player like i have players behind him like shamar turner jamari caldwell norman lot without a doubt that have way higher ceilings than him but it's just what I like what you see is what you get with Alfred Collins I'm good with that he could play on my defensive line I could trust him against the run I don't think he is really creative as a pass rusher and I think he does need to watch his pad level a little bit there was times as a pass rusher that his pads got a little high but he he

is like my steady eddie in this group i had him at eight which is kind of crazy that there are seven better defensive linemen in my eyes against him in this class but you know he did a lot of dirty work for texas and he just does a lot of things the right way he plays smart responsible read and react stack and shed football so I have him as my third ranked nose tackle so just above Jordan Phillips so this is the next nose tackle that I had here and I had him at number 11 just out just out of my top 10 really interesting background to him five star defensive end coming out of uh baship texas now obviously he's playing more defensive tackle he's been a pretty consistent contributor for this texas team although he hasn't really been like a full-time starter the whole time he's been pretty consistent i mean he played 10 games of

true freshman with one start 12 games of four starts the next year 12 games with one start the next year 14 games with six starts the next year and then he was a much more regular starter this past season in 2024 so he's been all over the place there he played basketball he ran track in high school um he also participated in the shop putting the discus while he was playing track as well he was an all a high school all-american so the five-star label sort of goes into what kind of an all-around athlete this guy was at the high school level and so you know you talking about how versatile he is I agree with you man I mean he's built super well he dropped out of the senior bowl so we didn't get those official measurements from him yet we built the combine but Texas lists him at six foot five 315 pounds which would be 89th

percentile and 76th percentile for an interior defensive lineman and interior defensive tackle to be to be to be specific there he could play nose he could play three technique for you he could play as a three four defensive end because I think he's got that length the issue with him I agree I think we see this similar this player pretty similarly because I would agree with you as well I think he is a floor type of a player. I think some people out there who I've seen some interior defensive line rankings for, I think are getting a little bit carried away with why he hasn't been a regular starter for them. Now, I understand he played behind Byron Murphy II

and Tavondre Sweat, but specifically like Byron Murphy II, that dude was a redshirt sophomore. Like the pecking order that it should have been was Collins starting over him. But he didn't. Why? Because Murphy's more twitchy. Because Murphy's more athletic. Now that doesn't mean to say that Collins isn't somebody that can also be an NFL player.

But to me, that's the conversation that we have to have about him. Cause I think he's great against the run. I think he's got great length to him. I think he can handle double teams pretty well, but I don't know if the pass rush is ever going to be there for him because the critique I have of him as a pass rusher, isn't necessarily that he doesn't try moves. It's not necessarily some hand placement things.

It's none of that. It's the fact that I think he's kind of slow off try moves. It's not necessarily some hand placement things. It's none of that. It's the fact that I think he's kind of slow off the ball. He's not explosive. You can say it. He is not explosive. You're right. He plays high, and his pursuit speed is very middling. So to me, those aren't things that get better.

Those aren't things that you get to the NFL and, oh, okay, all of a sudden, well, this stuff's going to stand out a lot more. So I think this is a good football player and a future NFL. But for example, I gave him a third round grade. I think he's like a third round type of a defensive lineman who could be a rotational, perhaps even a spot starter for you as your second defensive tackle or nose tackle if you wanted to, because he's got some unique length for a nose tackle and somebody that can defend the run i just don't think he's ever going to be a difference making pass rusher in the league because of more athletic and twitch limitations than things that i will i think will get better with um more pass rush moves or better technique

or hand placement or things like that so that's how i saw yeah i don't think you're i think it's we do see in the same way it's just kind of how you value you know what you're getting versus what you want to try to develop sure josh josh farmer from florida state i've got him at 10 you had him at 14 correct yep okay so i evaluated him as a three tech defensive tackle yep that checks out i have him at number seven he's my number seventh ranked three technique in this class six foot two and seven eight so almost six foot three it's right around 37th percentile for the position 74th percentile and weight at 314 another dude with big hands 10 and a half inch arm length for Joshua Farmer.

That is 97th percentile there from him. Three-star defensive lineman from Florida. Committed to Florida State. Wages 250 pounds when he was a defensive line recruit. I think that his journey goes just as much into his scouting report as his most recent year of tape does because he came into Florida State as a 250-pound defensive line recruit, more of a defensive end.

Ended up gaining a little bit of weight over the next couple of years in a good way, getting super strong, great strength and conditioning, being very disciplined there. And Florida State's coaching staff was like, no, no, no, no, just wait until you see this guy play a defensive tackle where we actually think he's going to be best. Then he got up to all the way above 300 plus. Now he's sitting around 315.

And to me, he's a beast. He's been a starter at Florida State over the last couple of seasons. He has been a bright point of that team, certainly this past year. I mean, he was one of the few um stars that they had on that team that was able to shine without um i think that he has got a ton of power man this is a guy who's got a lot of potential to him the numbers don't necessarily showcase what i

think he could be at the nfl level you look at the pass rush grade it's only you know 75.6 pass rush grade 77.0 against true pass sets. 8.7 win percentage, that's 59th percentile. Run defense grade, just 53rd. Or sorry, 53.0 overall grade. But to me, there's just so much potential in the body density he has, the explosiveness, the pop he creates at contact, the arm length that he has to be a unique matchup against guards and centers.

All of that is there for him. So he, to me, feels like that ball of clay. That feels like a ball of clay that I want to invest in. Now, he's not quite there, and so you never know how far of a next step he's going to take into the NFL level because it don't get much easier. It don't get any easier, excuse me, to progress once you get to the pros. But I do think that could be in the cards for Farmer, who I think has a great background of kind of coming from that defensive end spot to now being a pretty athletic and powerful

interior defense lineman. What'd you see? Yeah, man, to sum up your points, rugged, right? He plays a rugged brand of football. It's, you know, he will get off the ball and just doesn't care if he gets popped by a chipper a double team what a slide protection like he just he plays through anything uh contact wise he has an nfl body that's what that's what really jumps out when you turn on the tape with him you you know, he's about six foot three, like you said, really, really long arms,

well-built head to toe. It's a very well-rounded build, in my opinion. I like the way he gets off the ball and finds his way to attack gaps and get into the backfield in the pocket. And something that you really notice the more and more you watch Farmer this season on a bad, bad football team,

other teams knew he was one of the good players, and he got treated that way. Yeah, he did. You watch him, and you're like, man, what is it going to be like when you are viewed as the lowest threat on your team? Because your whole life this year was just getting game-planned around. Double teams, pullers. He just got the shit kicked out of him and

not in a way where he's losing, but in a way where you feel like you just fought for 12 rounds, like a boxing fight that goes the distance. That's what I noticed. And I give him a lot of credit because he never mailed it in. Not even close. No, he plays just as hard every single week. He's the same exact guy, not much help around him, doing everything he can to stop the run. I wrote down a better scheme, team, and better usage of his length could actually make him an above-average run defender at the NFL level. That's the kind of ceiling I saw for this guy. 9.4% pass rush win rate, a lot of power and effort right now,

but there is something there to develop, I think. And the one thing I will say why I had him a little lower is I think he's a little tight throughout his body. Like, I don't think he's a flexible, you know, agile kind of player. I think he does a good job getting off the ball and finding his way into how to attack gaps. But I think after that, pursuit becomes a little harder at times. But my synopsis was

farmer has the body and strength to mold into an early down run stopping defender with the ability to play both five tech and three tech i was very surprised at not just the low run defense grade that he had but also just watching it on film like he he way too easily gets walled off and sort of like pushed off his spot. And you watch other reps and you go, why? Like, you're not that that's, that's again,

why I, I have hope in this player, why he's higher. I mean, that might, that might be, I really felt that way. Like I'd watch a game of his and be like,

I mean, what else are they going to do? They don't have anyone else. That might be the case. I just, you know, whether it's anticipation or something, there were offensive linemen where on a pass rush play, he'd overpower the crap out of them and be like, you are stronger than this player.

And then that same guy would wall him off on a run play or, you know, push him out of the gap too easily. And I just think there's some more anticipation there from him we could have a really damn good player on our hands I mean he's got um tragic beginnings as well lost both of his parents before the age of 11 um ended up being he was raised by his grandmother when he was growing up but just a story of absolute perseverance from him to sort of get to this point um and it's just been it's been cool to watch him over the last couple of years. Cause you go back and watch the 2023 tape as well. Just his improvement as a player to getting to the point where he is

regarded as the pro that he is. And so somebody that you're rooting for the fact that they've made it here, given how their life went that when they were younger, just pretty incredible from him. So you tell he's got that tireless workers mentality when he is out there and it's a, it's a player along the defensive line that you're going to bet on when they give you that type of effort and that type of mentality so uh yeah i had farmer as my seventh ranked three technique defensive tackle um and i had him as the 10th ranked player overall here on the

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managed by Fort Washington Investment Advisors Incorporated. Additional services provided by Apex Clearing Corporation. All investing is subject to risk. Learn more at MeFabric.com. All right. Your 10 through 6. 10 through 6 here in the Interior Defensive Line episode. What do we got?

My 10 through 6. Darius Alexander from Toledo at 10. Number 9, Shamar Turner, Texas A&M. Eight, Alfred Collins from Texas. We already talked about him. Of course, number seven, everybody's favorite, Bullrush McIntyre. Let's go, baby! For those that missed the episode, that is TJ Sanders from South Carolina.

Man, what a year for TJ Sanders, number seven. And then number six, Derek Harmon from Oregon. Another Oregon defensive tackle on this list. All right. Okay. Two Oregon defensive tackles. I know Michigan had the better defensive tackle duo, but Oregon well represented here for us. Man man where do we want to start here who's 10 for you who's 10 again

Darius Alexander all right let's start with Darius Alexander so you got him at number 10. I got him at number five hello I got him cracking the top five from Toledo. Darius Alexander. I have him as my fourth ranked three technique defensive tackle. I mentioned he's from Toledo. He's a sixth year player. Get a job, right? Red shirt senior.

Just like the rest of us. He's working on it. We're out of the working world. Great measurable. 61st percentile in height uh just under six foot four 305 pounds right around 50th percentile for a defensive tackle big hand 76 percentile hands over 10 inch hands and then 34 inch arms 78th percentile there from him when you look at his background two-star defensive end from fort wayne indiana

very under recruited played football basketball, played football, basketball, also participated in track when he was in high school, but still Toledo is where he could get a scholarship. So that's where he went. He redshirted his first year, played in just six games in the second, only got three starts in 2021, one start in 2022, but then 11 starts in 2023. And then he was a monster in 2024, one of the highest graded players that we had in PFF, an elite overall defensive grade. Now he will be be older we don't have confirmed dates for all these guys yet when it comes to birthdays i know you guys kind of shout that out you're like all right we'll say the birthday we don't know exactly what those are confirmed but i do know that darius alexander will be 25 years old

his rookie season his birthday is in august and he will be 25 years old so you have to think about that as a six-year player he will be one of the older prospects in this class but he's older than sam darnold he's older than matt stafford you remember the matt stafford ones yes there's always one that everybody does yeah stafford and then darnold took the crown who's gonna be the next one who's the crazy one I want to hear I want to hear from the people in the chat who's the who's the crazy one that you hear where it's like this player is still younger than this player well what's the reference this isn't the I'm not I can't think of that I know what you're talking about, but when the bills took, oh, the linebacker, they took the sign with the bears.

God, this is going to drive me nuts. Got paid a lot of money by the bears. Oh, Tremaine Edmonds. Tremaine Edmonds. Tremaine Edmonds was, I mean, I think he had just turned 20. Like he was one of the youngest prospects. Him. He's one of the youngest prospects I ever remember.

Tremaine Edmonds is still 26. It feels like he's been in the NFL for 14 prospects. He's one of the youngest prospects I ever remember. Jermaine Edmonds is still 26. It feels like he's been in the NFL for 14 years. He's 26. That's actually nuts. Is that not insane? Wow. He was drafted in 2018. And he's 26.

Yes. His birthday is May 2nd, 1998. That's 26. Yes. His birthday is May 2nd, 1998. That's crazy. Absolutely insane. That's pretty much as young as it gets for you getting drafted in the NFL. Yeah. Where you got to wait like two years to have a drink. Your teammates are going out after a win and you got to like.

Water with lemon. It's not. You can't even get into the club. Water with lemon it's not you can't even go get into the club water with lemon outside outside unbelievable he's like that was a first over a first round pick hey sitting on the patio getting apps you know yep there's worse living exactly anyways little crab rangoon everybody else you know wasting their life away in there it's got a belly full of rangoon sounds like a good deal to me. They're drinking toxins, and you're getting beefy on Crab Rangoon. Crab Rangoon.

I'm going to throw in a Tremaine Edmonds Crab Rangoon reference when we cover the league next year. You better believe it. So anyways, getting back to Mr. Crab Rangoon himself, Darius Alexander. So again, he's 25. Now, getting back to sort of what I was himself darius alexander so again he's 25 now getting back to sort of what i was saying before we went on that epic ramp when you are an older prospect i think some people have a tendency to go he's a bum never draft they really do and it's you screwed up you got to understand the reason why we look at age is because what like contracts obviously come into

it you know it for Tremaine Memmins for example what's he on like his second third contract he's 26 obviously that is valuable because if you're signing your second contract at a younger age you can expect to get a higher return on them because they haven't you know quite literally aged yet so that sort of goes into it breakout Breakout age also goes into when you were in college. If you as a 18, 19 year old underclassman are able to not only keep up with, but also best generally, you know, 21, 22, 23 year old college players who have been in the game for five years, four or five years, then that also matters. That showcases your natural talent. But also, I think the part that people overlook is that when you are younger, it's okay if you are not seen as a finished product yet, because you could tell yourself, oh, the best is yet to come for them. Look at them. They're

still just 20. They're still just 21 years old. With Darius Alexander being 25, yeah, it's going to suck because certainly if he gets drafted in the first round, I don't know if he's getting drafted in the first round, but let's say he gets drafted in the first round. After your fifth year option, you're going to be 30 the next time you sign that deal. So that part of it's not ideal, but in terms of his rookie contract, he is a finished product. He is exactly what you would want him to be he was elite last year at Toledo he was a monster at the senior bowl this guy's going to be able to come in and contribute for you right away and that's important because I just think that people lose track of that when you are an older prospect it's not a kiss of death it's not it doesn't mean you're a bum and

you shouldn't get drafted it only really hurts you if you're a 24, 25-year-old. And I have to say, well, you got to get better at this. They got to get better at this. Because then you start talking about one year, two year into your NFL career, and you're not as productive as what you need to be. Then you're sitting here and you're 25, 26, 27 before you really hit that. Darius Alexander is going to be 25 his rookie season, but this dude is going to hit the ground running. This guy already knows how to play as a pro. We saw it this year at Toledo. We saw it at the Senior Bowl. Dominant football player.

So that's, I just, I wanted to sort of go on that mini little age rant. I knew we would when we would get to Alexander, but it's not a total, you shouldn't draft this guy if he's an older player. First round, okay, yeah, you can obviously go into that conversation because you want your first round investments to hopefully go two contracts for you. If you go two contracts with Darius Alexander, he's going to be 33-34. I understand all that. But how many NFL players make it to the second contract anyways?

It's less of a guarantee than we believe. Just draft good football players. That's basically what I'm trying to say. Alexander's great. Not only does he have great size, great production, 82.1 pass rush grade on true pass sets over the last two years, 96th percentile pass rush win percentage as an interior player, 88.9 run defense grade, so you'll love that as well.

Explosive first step, great speed to power, powerful leg drive, great build to him for an interior defensive lineman, violent club move. Now, that is something that I love. Some of these guys, they'll throw these pass rush moves at you. They'll try to be quick. They'll try to be finesse. Darius Alexander, he acts like you are a tackling dummy. When we're going through defensive line drills, he is just, boom, he is looking to just saw straight through you before he hits you with that arm over and he gets into the backfield. Strong as an ox versus run defense to me i just love this player man that's why he's number five for me on this interior defensive line group because i think you can plop him into the nfl

right now three technique defense tackle and he can be a stud for you there's an argument to be made nobody did more for themselves on the defensive side of the ball than Darius Alexander at the senior bowl. Yeah. Like obviously Greg Zabel comes to mind overall, a couple other guys, but Alexander goes into a group where he's entirely overlooked and he dominated. And the thing that I'm trying to figure out, Trevor, number one, he's been very productive across, you know, five different seasons at Toledo. He's knocked down six passes the last two years 14 tackles for loss in that same span you you brought up the pop in the hands that was the number one thing I wrote down like you either got that or you don't people do forget you are trying to inflict pain on the guy

across from you to disrupt the play and I think he, that was the number one thing with Jared verse. Whenever I watched Jared verse, I was like, Jared verse gets like when the ball is snapped, Jared verse treats it. Like he just came out of the corner of a boxing ring and wants to go knock out the person in front of him. He treats like the guy in front of him like that on every single play

heavyweight fighter hands. I think Darius Alexander has really good pop in his hands really good effort snap by snap basis like the effort is always the same and that's not easy at that size um and I just thought he was one of the best players at the senior bowl it's weird I thought he was pretty sluggish getting off the ball on tape and I didn't think that at the senior bowl. So you never know how these guys are being coached up in their scheme in terms of when they're supposed to kind of read and react and when they're allowed to fire off the ball and get after it. I don't think he's a,

I don't think he's a bad athlete, but I didn't see the same athlete consistently on tape that I saw on the practice field. Right. But we saw it at the senior bowl. I agree. I know he can do it. I didn't get to

his final eval until after we were back from mobile same and i the first two games i watched i was like am i like am i watching this in slow-mo this is not the same player but then like in the midst of doing the scouting report i went back and i watched the senior bowl stuff i was like nope it's there he did it in mobile He did it in mobile. So he's got it. I know he's got it in the tank. Now I didn't give him like a crazy high first step explosiveness, like film grade, because I have that as one of my categories.

Cause I just didn't see it on film, but I certainly saw it at the senior bowl. So I give it a little bit of a bump there because I've seen it on the field. So anyways, yeah. Darius Alexander. Yep.

Good player. I don't like the reason I didn't have him ultimately in my top five, I don't think he's the most explosive, flexible, athletic guy in the world, but he's a damn good player. And to your point about the age, Braden Fisk was a 24-year-old on draft night, and a team went up for him in the second round. He had a really good rookie year.

So Darius Alexander, I'm not really worried about it either. This is a player who is at number five for me i am very curious to see how he tests in mo in uh in indiana that's my one that is a concern for me right now because if he tests well then you believe a lot of the explosiveness that you saw in mobile and if he doesn't test well, then unfortunately you go, okay, limited explosiveness on tape, which matters most, and then limited explosiveness in Indianapolis. You go, all right, well, it's not like I didn't see what I saw in Mobile, but how consistently am I going to get that?

So this obviously, as everything, can adjust when we get these final measurements, final explosiveness tests, all that kind of stuff. But I love the kind of player that he is so i got him at number five uh what was your 10 through six all right so my 10 through six let's read them off josh farmer who we already talked about there jared ivy from old miss who i have categorized as a 3-4 defense event because in my opinion that's where he is going to be best at the NFL level. Now, if he gets drafted to a team that is running more of an even front, then he'll probably play defensive end for them. He probably won't shift inside the defensive tackle,

but maybe he will because when I watched Jared Ivey, I liked this player and I ended up, I first had him at edge. That's where I'm going to have him for our final edge ranking show. And I didn't, the final film grade that I have with the, you know, sort of weighted traits that I have in the different categories that I had, the number it spit out, I was like, man, I like this player more than that. And then I put him in more of a 3-4 spot and it allowed, in my opinion, what he does well in his strengths to shine more, and I have a more favorable grade on him. So I go, okay, well, this is where I actually think that you're going to play best at the NFL level.

6'5 and 5'8, so almost 6'6, that's 91st percentile, even for an interior defensive lineman. 283 pounds, but I easily think that he could gain a little bit more weight. 283 pounds for an interior defensive lineman, that's still 83rd percentile. So he can even gain a little bit of weight and get above the 50th percentile there. Smaller hands at 9 and an eighth, but then long arms, 33 and 3 fourths inch arms. I mean, I love that about him. The reason why I don't have him at edge and I have him as an interior guy is because,

one, I think that the long arms are more of a mismatch with him on the interior. I naturally think that strength is how he is going to win most at the NFL level. The speed to power can be super imposing. So again, just going more towards that power profile. I like how he could square up with any interior offensive lineman and he can hold up decently well against double teams.

He's got some pretty quick hands, which you need if you're playing on the inside. And I think more importantly, the reason why I don't have him at edge isn't even just because of what I think that he could do well on the interior. It's that I don't think he has the speed or the bend or the twitch to threaten the outside shoulder as an edge rusher. So I don't want to ask him to do that. I'd rather just ask him to do what I think is his busy most difference making traits and his most different difference making style which is more of an interior player there so he is my number one ranked three four at defensive end here as I

have at number nine so he's my top guy in that category and somebody who um I do really like a lot for an odd front. Like, I guess I know that Arizona just drafted Darius Robinson, but like Darius Robinson and Jared Ivey. Now I'm not saying the Cardinals should draft them at 16, but I'm saying like those two guys in the same odd front defensive line, that's a nasty, you know, they didn't more help up front still even after that three, four defensive end. So like,

that's just, just an example of, of somewhere where I can see him going. So he was what for you? He was nine for me. So, so he was nine and then Shamar Turner's eight. Tyleek Williams is seven for me.

And then a bull rush McIntyre TJ Sanders is number six. Okay. We're pretty close. We are dec pretty close. We are decently close. Yeah. I had Shamar Turner at nine. I had TJ Sanders at seven.

Let's talk about Shamar. All right. Because did you find it fascinating to watch him this year where they kicked him in? When we watched him over summer, was like oh man like this guy at his size does some pretty unique stuff for an edge rusher like a real edge rusher and he had six sacks that year he had 10 and a half tackles for a loss this year they kick him inside he plays a lot more true, like defensive tackle, even some nose tackle and the production dips.

Uh, the unique movement skills didn't take advantage of as much on a down by down basis. Like he's an above average athlete at defensive tackle. He really is. And I think he's got quickness. I like the change of direction. I think he's more flexible than a lot of these guys,

considering his size. But man, like that kick inside the D-tackle and nose tackle, the pass rush win rate, Trevor, went from 13.3% to 6.2%. He just felt like a guy that the pad level on the inside kind of got him locked up at times that he didn't know how to counter as well. I felt like when I watched him over summer playing edge last year, he can kind of flip his hips a little bit

or he can kind of angle his way around guys and counter. On the inside, he felt like a guy that looked around and was like, I just don't have as much space to work with. I don't know if I like the phone booth game as much. So a little bit of a tweener for me right now, but I like his DNA. I like the mindset. I like how he plays even without the production. So I believe like, he's just going to figure it out. That's kind of why I'm betting on him this high. I think he's just going to figure it out. I think he plays really rugged and hard against the run when he needs to. Um, so I like Turner a lot. I liked him a lot over summer.

And I think the position change was a really big ask of this program. I really do. And I think he held his own. I just don't think he was the same disruptor that he was in 2023. But he's got an NFL body and he's got above average athleticism. And with the tape he's put out,

like that's why he falls into the top 10 of a loaded D-line class. You know, if I remember correctly, I didn't love him at edge. Yippies put out. That's why he falls into the top 10 of a loaded D-line class. You know, if I remember correctly, I didn't love him at edge. I didn't think that he was built like an edge. Now he's productive. He was more productive last year when he was on the edge. But you start stacking things with Shamar Turner and Shamar Stewart and Nick Skorton.

Yeah. And you look at all three of those guys, and none of them really got into the backfield the way that you thought they could this past year. So at this point, I wonder if that's just a Texas A&M thing. You got to ask it because... Right. The NFL likes all three of these guys.

All three of these guys. Yeah. And Skorton was very underwhelming when it came to backfield production. He looked too heavy. Turner was not nearly as efficient. And Shamar Stewart had a sack and a half this past year. So I don't know. It was very, that's very strange to me.

So I don't, I like Shamar Turner as a three technique defensive tackle. Yeah. No, I think that's what he has to do at the NFL level. As much as the adjustment wasn't as impactful, he was not a negative player when they kicked him inside. He just had to play differently. And like you just indicated, we like these players individually,

like in a vacuum, but you thought that them playing together would be, you know, the sack exchange of college football and it just didn't happen and it did and it just didn't happen now i will say this about turner i agree with a lot of sort of what you said there i think he's got some unique quickness the hands man this dude's got excellent hands i mean they are active they are fast they are violent there are very few interior defensive linemen in this class that play as clean and when i say clean i don't mean like discipline aspect i mean like

offensive linemen can't latch on they can't like get in front of you and mirror you and totally neutral there are very few players that play clean more often than Turner because he is a, he is a ninja. The second the ball gets snapped, his hands are constantly moving. He's two hands, one hand swipe, the chop or rip something. He is making it so you cannot get two hands on him and you cannot latch on and control him. So he plays very clean, and I love that about him. He also plays with relentless effort. His effort will never be questioned. I found this quote from Jimbo Fisher when he was still the head coach of Texas A&M, obviously. He said, quote, there's nobody on our team that loves football more than Shamar.

That guy loves to play. He loves to practice. He loves to work out. He loves to do everything associated with football. He plays with the passion and energy and energy in everything. I love everything about what he does, the intensity that he brings every play in practice to him is the national championship. That's awesome. You, you just, you absolutely love that. And I was reading a little bit about his, uh, his background and kind of his upbringing as well. Read that kind of got in a lot of trouble when he was in elementary school and middle school and his mom ended up, um, having him go live with her brother. So his uncle who was a youth football coach. So he sort of got into football and his uncle sort of really helped him, you know, set an example of what it's like to be a man and, you know, um, take responsibility for yourselves and, and sort of like make the most out of the talent you have and who you are as a person. And then his high school coach ended up doing the same as well, kind of took him under his wing, was a role model for him. And really it feels as though ever since that change, he has just been somebody who has been incredibly driven, incredibly focused and wanting to make the most of all of his opportunities, no matter what. So it was really cool to sort of read that story about somebody who

is just taking every opportunity that they have in life, whether it's every snap of the most of all of his opportunities no matter what so it was really cool to sort of read that story about somebody who um is just taking every opportunity that they have in life whether it's every snap of the game of football or just how you carry yourself and obviously how Jimbo sort of talks about him as a person as a player which I thought was really really cool he's also somebody who has played through a lot of injury you talking about how much you like 2023 I found this out about him he had two surgeries after the 2023 season one on a torn labrum in his shoulder and the other one was an undisclosed lower leg injury it's ridiculous so that dude was playing hurt in 2023 and you were talking about how much you like this tape so again um can't question the effort i think that this is a player who could be an even more productive pro

than what we saw at a and m uh this past season so i do like Turner as well. And that's why I had him number eight. Yeah, I had him number nine. And I just, he's somebody that just grows on me more and more, which is weird to say because I liked him a lot over summer. But I don't know, man. I love hearing all those things. And I just think he just has, he has a DNA that really fits the NFL. And we'll translate.

And I kind of see him on the right trajectory. And I just wonder what him on the right trajectory. And I just wonder what all those Texas A&M guys are going to look like individually next year. I'm much more bullish on their production going forward despite the year of like, that was weird, you know? It makes me want to, because I remember, where did I have Skorton in our edge rush rankings? I had him fourth, and I thought you did too.

I thought, no, I had him like edge rush rankings? I had him lower than I thought you did too. I had him like seventh. I had him seven. And it was because I was so disappointed this year. And I might have to go just revisit this with a different mindset and say, nah, man, I'm almost trusting Purdue more than I am the Texas A&M stuff with him. And so just an interesting thing to go back and look at. So I had Tylee Williams at seven. He was my next guy there.

Where did you have Tyleek? Fourth. Okay, so you've got him fourth. So we're not too far apart. I think the big difference with us with Tyleek Williams is going to be just how high you view the run defense attributes and how much you weigh the fact that he's probably not going to give you much as a pass rusher, right?

No, he's not. I think the same exact conversation that we have with Jordan Phillips is Tyleek Williams. Williams is just better. And I think that he's bigger. He is longer with his arm length. He's got a little bit more quickness. He's got a little bit more pass rush chops to him.

But to me, these are basically a similar player. If you're a team that loves Tyleek Williams, and I think the NFL is going to be higher on Tyleek Williams than I am. It sounds like he'd be like a late first, early second round player. I see him as more of like a late second, early third type of a player. If you can't get him at that point and you're targeting him as a football team and you don't get him, you're basically drafting Jordan Phillips in like the third round or fourth round. Like that's, it's's to me like they are the same archetype of player. I just do not see somebody who's going to give you really anything

in pass rushing, and anytime that's the case, I'm going to be a little bit lower on you. So I got him at seven, but you talk to me about what you see in Tyleek Williams at number four for you. It's just a two-gapping wall. Like there's no – you watch the the game against Oregon in the playoff especially too like there's just you have to run away from this guy you have to alter what your run game wants to do because if you run at him or near him he is going

to redirect your running back and the play is ruined typically from there on strength from his base like he's got mass top to bottom but how he just like how he kind of unlocks the strength from his mass is different to me and this is this is the difference between the guys that you hope can find it and the guys that have it and jordan phillips is a guy that i think teams will hope he can find it because there's plenty of snaps where you look at him and go, man, you can't move him. And he's, he looks the part and he's sure we know he's strong. We see him in the weight room,

but what's up with the snaps where he does get driven out of the play or just moved out of the play? Like what did he do wrong there with Ty League? I don't really see those plays. He's just a force in the middle of the field that if you want to force a team into third and longs, this is the kind of player you have to have on the field on first and second down, especially in a league that everybody wants to be able to run the ball or at least set up the run to work play

action. I agree with you. If you're hoping that he's going to be some disruptive pass rusher, like to me, he's just a pocket pusher. That's what he is. And he'll play with effort. And if you have guys on the back end that there's a coverage sack opportunity, he'll play through the whistle and try to get that coverage sack opportunity. But man, stack and shed, hard-nosed player. And I see him just wear guys down.

Like you watch the third and the fourth quarter, what they looked like going up against Tyleek Williams in the first half. They run out of gas against this guy. He's just bigger, stronger, good hands. I thought teams had to completely alter their game plan when he was on the field in 2024. They just knew the run game had to be a dimension that was away from him. And I,

I value that so much, that presence so much in the NFL level today, where I, maybe a first round pick is a little rich because you, you want to have complete ish player in the first round. Although this draft, I don't know, but man,

if you find a way to walk out of round two with Tyleek Williams and you just drop him right in the middle of your defensive line, like you feel amazing about that. He's my number two nose tackle that we have here. And it would be the same for me. And I think that sort of the way that you're talking about him, if he is that dominant as a run defender, because I thought he was obviously an excellent run defender.

He's got really good run defense tape. The run defense numbers for him weren't like elite, elite. They were still very strong for two straight years. So I'm not trying to take anything away from him. If it's more of what you say, where he gets to the NFL and he is even a player that, I love the way you put it there. If you've got a game plan around somebody, it basically doesn't matter what kind of a pass rusher you are.

You are making the impact that you need to make. So if he is that level of a run defender for an NFL team, then I think that he would be worthy of a top 50 selection. And so I would totally get it. So that's sort of just where we're at with him. He's somebody who I think, I think this is worth noting. I think Tyleek Williams looked great this year, like physically. And when we talked about him over summer scouting, a little bit of hesitancy that I had with Williams, whose tape I didn't love over the last couple of years. You also have to talk about his journey about his weight where he said coming out of

high school he did an interview where he was he talked about this years later his senior season in high school got canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic so he didn't have a high school football season his senior year and he said he let himself go and he was like 360 365 pounds when he got to Ohio State so then he cut down to like 320 325 the next year and then he cut down even further and ohio state had him listed like 295 which i felt like was a lie anyways now in his fourth year i think they have him listed at what's he listed at two two or sorry 325 that's he looks 325 but he I think he looked very well built at 325 like I thought he finally was able to shape his body exactly the way that he would want to play

on the football field so it's worth noting that this was the best version of Tylee Williams I've had yet maybe I'm a little bit lower on him just because it's taking me a little bit of time to get there with him so I'm I'm kind of wondering you know like am I being a little bit lower on him just because it's taking me a little bit of time to get there with him. So I'm kind of wondering, you know, like, am I being a little bit too much lower, too lower on him? But that's sort of how I see him. I see him as a good football player. I don't see him as a crazy elite football player. But maybe if he is that type of a run defender, you would take him at that spot. So I am a seven.

You had him at four. The next guy that we had, we already talked about Darius Alexander, who I had a five. You had a 10. I think TJ Sanders is the only guy left in our 10 to 5 or in our 10 to 6. i i have derek harman at six and i know you have him in the top five so i do i have him i haven't met four which i know people are maybe screaming at their computer or uh screaming at their car radio listening to this because i've had derek harman ranked in like the 80s like the 80s and 90s on the pff big board for a long time because i watched him a couple of weeks into the season and i was like all right like i kind of feel like it's fool's gold with him and then i did the full scouting report well he's really good

so so so we'll get to that in a second but we should talk about t.j sanders first i have him at number six overall you have him at number seven i believe i think so let me double check that yes seven he is my fifth ranked three technique defensive tackle here six foot five 200 and uh oh whoa no he's actually a little bit less than that three and a three quarters yeah so okay you know what I got the wrong numbers measured so I'm gonna look those up and change those you should talk about TJ Sanders first and then I'll uh six three and three quarters 284 and uh basically as average arm length as you could have at the position. He is like the true median here at 33 and 5 eighths.

I think that is actually the middle point. Is it a 50th percentile? I think that might be 50th percentile. So 33 and 5 eighths. I mean, T.J. Sanders, though, as a player who we've talked about a lot, he's had a really good two-year stretch here in college football for South Carolina. 2023, four and a half sacks, six quarterback hits, 16 hurries, knocked down four passes.

2024, you got a little bit more of a reputation. You get treated different. Same here, four sacks, nine quarterback hits, 19 hurries, knocked down two passes. He generates such explosive power in the bull rush. That's why I call him bull rush McIntyre. And I really liked the way he could swipe with his hands. Like he understands, okay, the guy in front of me knows that what I love to do is unlock lower body power to drive into the chest and knock him back into the quarterback. Now that he knows that, my second move can be the two-handed swipe

to go around him where he's setting his hands one way for the bull rush, and then I could swipe them out of the way and open up one of the shoulders to try to go around him. So obviously a very calculated player. I think he's twitchy off the ball. I see guards very off balance when trying to do, and that goes back with when you have a reputation for power, it allows you to counter in different ways.

So when guards are setting up for power, because, oh, it's TJ Sanders in front of me, he's this compact player that can get off the ball and he's very strong for his body weight. Well, now all of a sudden he's kind of stutter stepping and he's got the arms moving. Oh man, I'm in my pass set. I was expecting power.

Now I'm kind of in an isolation basketball mode and I lose my balance on my feet. I think he does a really, this is an underrated skill of his. He keeps his head up to understand that quarterbacks are going to escape. And by keeping his head up throughout the rush, there was a couple of times

where quarterbacks tried to break from the pocket and he shut them down, which is, that's a skill you have to have in the NFL. When you're dealing with Patrick, my homes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson,

Jaden Daniels, Jalen hurts. Like, uh, it goes like on and on and on. That's a very important skill. Pass rush. Win rate went up this year.

It was 7.2%. 2023 went all the way up to 12.6% this year. That's a really, really big jump for an interior defensive lineman. 94th percentile true pass rush grade, 79th percentile run stop percentage. He's got a ton of experience as a three tech. I think you could drop him in as a three tech in the NFL, and he'll be ready to roll, at least as a rotational player. He just naturally does not have the size to be this space eater or take

on double teams he's 284 pounds like i don't want tj sanders to be taking on double teams or having a two gap all the time against the run but if i kind of you know limit his role as hey i liked him trevor personally honestly as an attacking even front player at times even though i know he's played a lot of three-tech at college. I looked at him and said, man, if I played an even front and I was a little bit more in attack mode, I would love this guy on my front. We've seen that over the years.

Kyle Shanahan always keeps his defense the same, no matter who the defensive coordinator is. Robert Sala brought that to the Jets. Those kinds of fronts. D'Amico Ryans with the texans is another one tj sanders man like he he those teams i think those coordinators those coaches those schemes will really really like this guy i i people who have listened this podcast for over a year know um i'm a big tj sanders guy He was somebody that I brought to the table last year and

said, man, if this guy declares, I don't think we're talking about him enough on the interior defensive line group. And then he had another season where he played very well and even, you know, bumped up a level. He was a three-star defensive end coming out of high school, kicks inside. So, you know, defensive end, he was a defensive end coming out of high school. And then he kicked inside a little bit, I think because South Carolina realized, hey, this guy could be a major mismatch player for us as a one-gap penetrating three-technique defensive tackle like you just put there. I see him very similarly.

Not only did he play defensive line and tight end when he was in high school, he also played basketball, averaged a double-double, and was the 6A player of the year in his county playing basketball. And so when you see a lot of those those hesitation moves you know two-handed swipes the quick stuff to get into the backfield setting guys up like he's got a basketball in his hand to cross him over that is where that stuff comes from and i love it i love when defensive linemen have that basketball type of a background because they're able to do stuff like that so you mentioned a lot of the stats that he has you know i think

sometimes he gives up leverage a little sooner than he needs to. Sometimes I think he gets a little overzealous to shoot the gap and he gets out of his, uh, and he gets out of his own gap when it comes to run defense, or he can give up contain against mobile quarterbacks. Sometimes I wish that, uh, I wish that he would get off the block a little bit sooner. There are times when I'm like, I know you got moves. Like, I know you got the hand and you're just, you, you were letting yourself get locked up. You're exposing your chest a little bit too easy. times when i'm like i i know you got moves like i know you got the hand and you're just you you're letting yourself get locked up you're exposing your chest a little bit too easy and these guys are getting able to get their hands inside and latch on you a little bit more than they should but like you said there are some negatives to his game but if you are a 4-3 lineup where you let this guy play as a one gap penetrating defensive tackle

he's gonna get into the backfield for you and he's gonna be a one-gap penetrating defensive tackle, he's going to get into the backfield for you, and he's going to be an impactful pro. So TJ Sanders, Bull Rush McIntyre himself, I'm a big fan. Big fan of him. Playstyle, he's a little taller than this guy, but same kind of length and playstyle. Sheldon Rankins kind of player okay yeah i think he's a little he's like two inches taller than sheldon which makes that a little

tough but uh i thought the play style was pretty similar just that attacking guy in an even front i had um i had quentin jefferson written down as say another guy that lived in that scheme yes right right so that was, that's, that's who I had written down for, for Sanders. And just for context, like second round grade on TJ Sanders.

I got a second round grade on him for everybody out there. I think that's everybody. So I think we're now getting into the top five. I mentioned Darius Alexander is my fives. Who's your, wait, who's your five. You want me to read my top five or number five.

Just read, just read your five. Let's go's go one by one now let's let's get this uh shamar stewart oh okay like that's not really as fun because you had him in the edge rankings and but yeah shamar stewart is number five for me but how did you see him as an interior defensive lineman obviously you got him at number five i think i had him at number five of edge ironically i'm sure he's gonna be like the same exact spot right board so what did you think of of shamar turner sorry smart smart stewart sorry i'm gonna do that until the end of time you know how we like there's a swear jar when you're growing up sometimes like i need a shamar turner shamar stewart jar it's gonna be hard and and at the end of this at the end of the season we're gonna pick a bet we're gonna throw it all in red and that's literally what's gonna finance the yacht because

of how many times i'm gonna mess these guys we finally afford it uh man and i almost just did it again i had to stop myself this This is like absolutely ridiculous. I'm the bad influence. I'm the bad influence. It's me. I know. So Shamar Stewart, for some context here, because he really has played a lot of edge and like end over the last two years. But he is the size of a defense. Like he's bigger than TJ Sanders.

So my evaluation with him, and I keep going back and forth on this, and I'll be interested to see if he just ends up in my final edge rankings, but I didn't have him in the edge rankings. I wanted him here. He's that classic case of a guy, Trevor, that I think you love,

that on early downs, I'll play him on end. I'll play him on the edge. And then when I want my pass rush package to come in, he's playing on the inside because he's going to be extremely disruptive and quick and too athletic for interior offensive linemen. But he obviously has the size and length and movement skills

to play as an edge rusher on early downs that's why teams like everybody wondering why a guy that had one and a half sacks in 2023 and one and a half sacks in 2024 is showing up in the top 20 in mock drafts because there is some unicorn to this guy the size the length the athleticism for his body. I think he is just such a confident run defender. Like the way he just shoots into the backfield. I'd like to see him finish some more plays. I've said this before, but he is confident in disrupting the play

and getting into the backfield. The change of direction is just silly, right? Which is why I like that he could play inside and outside. Because when you have that kind of change of direction and it's down dependent where i line you up like that creates a lot of fun matchups whether it's against a tackle guard or center obviously his experience playing everywhere he's pretty flexible the bend that he has plays obviously if you're on playing as an edge rusher you want to attack the outside

shoulder with the bend but if you kick him inside at times too like that's going to be problematic especially on those passing downs where there's maybe a little bit more space so and the strides that you like to contain quarterback sideline to sideline when he forces a quarterback out of the pocket like he can really really close to the sideline so he's a weird one right because unlike Turner his teammate Shamar Turner I think the hands are underdeveloped and not as powerful as they should be for what his god-given talent is like there's time and that's where I look at him and go maybe he's not a defensive tackle because you need to have really powerful hands to play on the interior of the defensive line.

That's where I have a little bit of like a reservation where I'm like, Oh man, like I, you got to have stronger hands on a down by down basis. If you're going to play inside. That's why I think it's a hybrid role for him. I think there's just a lot of reps where the offensive line is dictating the rush because he doesn't have a lot of moves he's not a guy with all these different moves

he's just an athlete out there with god-given size length athleticism so he it's you're like we had this combo earlier where you said man i'd like to see it before I just assume it. He's 21 on draft day. He's not been really productive, but he does enough that you just go, man, I think with the right coaching and better hand usage and one or two pass rush moves, this guy's going to be a beast. But I still had him at five on this with four players ahead of him because there is that chance where maybe this is who he is and he's just a really really good athlete he has some splash

plays and he kind of is it you know like he's versatile which gives him value as well but is he actually a game wrecker I don't think he's a game wrecker yet and that's typically how you want to spend a top 15 pick on a guy you believe can wreck the game the belief is there because the potential is there but it still feels like he's got a lot of development left to do i look i i think that you paint the picture pretty well of him um i talked about him when we went over the edge rush episode how a lot of the physical gifts are there but you're wanting the production to be there for him. And again,

I think that some people go, Oh, well it'll, I mean, it'll come of course, like it'll show up for him. I am less confident that happens every single year when it comes to these certain,

when, when it comes to these players, it's just, it doesn't happen as much as we wish that it would. That's not to say that it can't happen with Stewart because you see his athletic gifts in a 73.8 pass rush grade against true pass sets and an 82.0 run defense grade when he's defending the run.

But then you also see, okay, great run defense grade, only 4.0 run stop percentage so solo run stop percentage that's just fourth percentile so he's just not he's not making plays on the ball he doesn't finish plays and then when it comes to pass rush win percentage of getting into the backfield you mentioned just a sack and a half this past year just a half a sack and a half the year before 13.2 percent pass rush win percentage is 57 percentile it's not the worst in the world but he's just not a finisher he's a great football player he's 57th percentile. He's not the worst in the world, but he's just not a finisher. He's a great football player.

He's a gifted football player, but he's not a finisher. And I think that that is worth noting. Just worth noting. And one last thing I'll say is why I have him at five on this list. He rarely ever looks bad on a play. That's what leaves you wanting like. Sure. Why you believe sure because there are a

lot of guys on today's show that they get their ass kicked on play sometimes whether it's double team their pad level's bad they allow guys to get under them he doesn't really look bad to me on many plays it's almost jarring how he could stalemate, but you want the scale to tip a little bit more that he has wrecked the game moments. So I have Derek Harmon at number four. Yep. You had him where? Sixth.

Okay. So Derek Harmon, interior defensive lineman, redshirt junior from Oregon, was previously at Michigan State. I'll get to that in a second. I have Derek Harmon as my number three ranked three technique defensive tackle in this class. Started his career as a three-star defensive lineman from Detroit, Michigan, committing to Michigan State. Played both sides of the line in high school. Played offensive line and defensive line for

all four years that he played high school ball. So dude just loves football. Redshirt in his first year when he was at Michigan State, played sort of sparingly in 2022, five starts there. In 2023, he started 10 games, primarily a run-stuffing defensive tackle when he was at Michigan State. That was really what his bread and butter was. Then he transfers over to Oregon in 2024, drops some weight, drops about, shoot, at least 15 pounds. And boy, did he look quicker.

Boy, was he a much better pass rusher at Oregon than he was at Michigan State. And he became a difference-making type of a football player. So he's listed at 6'5", 310 pounds. That would be 89th percentile in height, 65th percentile in overall weight when you look at some of his numbers over the last two years 90.0 elite pass rush grade against true pass sets 14.3 pass rush win percentage that's 97 percentile and yet the run defense grade stayed pretty strong at an 84.9 that's pretty fantastic stuff from harman now i was i was sort of skeptical about him because going into

the season, I watched a lot of his Michigan state stuff. And I was like, I just don't, I don't think he moves well enough to be a pass rusher. And then he dropped the weight and he moved a lot better at Oregon. But in those first couple of weeks, when I watched him in the beginning parts of the season, I said, okay, you're lighter. You're a better pass rusher. But now I think you're getting moved off the ball a little bit too easy. And so now at that I get worried when I see you at a heavier weight you go okay you're a run stuffer but you can't really give me what you need to as a pass rusher and then throughout the first couple of games of the season I said all right cool you're a pass rusher now you're getting kind of bullied off the ball a little bit so then there's just this giant give and take and I I feel like I've

been burned like this before these players they just go back and forth and they fluctuate weight and they can't decide what they actually want to be at the defensive tackle spot. And I get a little bit worried. As the season played on, Harmon not only continued to get better as a pass rusher, but he also really stabilized who he was as a run defender to now, in my opinion, we've got a complete three tech defensive tackle, great arm length for an interior player, really quick first step, quick footwork beyond that, which I love. Some of these guys that we talk about, they got a quick first step. They go,

okay, I'm going to get low and I'm a launch off of my quad muscles because I've got good technique. I'm not having a false step. I'm launching off of that front foot and I'm getting into the back field, but Harmon's got a great first step. And then he's got quick feet after that to continue to chop the feet, to continue to be able to cross offensive linemen and blockers up. The hands are fast as well. So the hands are as equally as fast as the feet are. To me, the push pull moves that he has when he's getting off the line of scrimmage and boom, those hands fire up very quickly. They fire up inside. They're knocking blockers back onto their heels. And then it's like, all right, the second they start to recover, boom, you're yanking them to the left.

I think that the left or right, I think Harmon does that very, very well. I think he's a super competitive player. Love the motor that he plays with, especially at a lighter weight. I feel as though he's playing with a much higher motor. He's a little bit naturally higher when it comes to the pad level. He's got a little bit of inflexibility when it comes to truly getting his butt down in his stance when he's in a three point stance. But this is somebody who I love how fast the hands work.

I love how fast the feet work for him. He turned into a, such a high IQ pass rusher and just overall football player this past season. So to me, that is also something that that really stood out my bottom line my sort of summary assessment of harman he has just one year of notable production but that one season showcased a player with a high football iq consistent competitiveness and nfl level quickness to be a contributing and potentially impact three

technique defense flyman for an even front so that is sort of how we got around how i got around on harman i see him like a christian barmore type of a player that is who came to mind when i was starting to see the best in the flashes of derrick harman and what he could be at the nfl level as i have with him a second round grade he really grew on me and just the fact that like that I had the same kind of pathway as you, where I was like, is this a random breakout? Is there a bit of a fluke here? I mean, he is just so disruptive, man. So disruptive.

And the ability to cross the face of the offensive lineman with quickness and swim moves and at that size, but then also bull rush underneath blockers backwards into the pocket. Like that's the kind of change up that makes a really effective interior rusher. The things that concern me, he's got a really top heavy build still, even after dropping that weight and the balance is not great all the time. The balance get knocked over. Yeah. He gets knocked over. Sometimes he's chasing the running back,

and he missed seven tackles against the run in 2024 when he's right there. He just doesn't have that reactive balance. So I want to see the body improve, continue to improve. It's good that it has improved. I think if his body continues to improve, he'll be a big-time NFL player. So that brings us to our top three, which I sure as hell hope are the same three, unless we're seeing one of these guys drastically different.

Let's go ahead and just go 3-2-1 who you got, and then we'll talk about all three of these guys. Soeth grant was three for me the nose tackle from michigan and man did i pull my hair out between having him at two or three at two was walter nolan from old miss who yep what an unbelievable year i'll just say it right now i watched him over summer and i was like this guy for all the hype as a recruit has not found it yet. He found it this year, Walter Nolan, and was magnificent. And then number one's Mason Graham, who I still think is one of the best players in this draft. And I'm a firm believer people are starting to have prospect fatigue on him.

Mr. Meat Fabric himself, is that how we're going with it? We're calling Mason Graham Mr. Meat Fabric? Yeah, Mr. M. Fabric. M. Fabric uh you know what's funny i'm just not for mason um you know what uh you know it's funny you you talked about how close it was for you with walter nolan and kenneth grant i have walter nolan at three i think i had a feeling yeah and i have mason graham at number one the difference between walter nolan and kenneth grant for me in my numerical film breakdown scale is 0.5 that's amazing he makes me feel better i gave walter nolan an 80.5 and i gave kenneth grant an 81 of these numbers are obviously out of 100. And these guys both in that category have late first, early second round grades.

So talk to me about Nolan first. Somebody who you have at number two. Somebody who you talked about just taking a big time leap this past year. The interior defensive lineman from Ole Miss. And then I'll give you my thoughts here after you. I admittedly, when I watch a guy the first time and I'm just like, not about it at all. I mean, I didn't even rank him over our summer rankings.

I could be, I'm not firm. Like you need to be very, very pliable and willing to change your opinion in this business or you will miss all the time. But you know how we build in, not even biases. You're just like have these things built into you nolan just has completely altered all the concern a lot of the concerns that i had i thought he was somebody that wanted to play a finesse game in the most brutal part of the football field and this year i think he just completely rounded out his game six and a half sacks four quarterback

hits 25 hurries knocked down two passes he was the number one overall recruit in 2022 if anyone needs to be reminded of that started off at Texas A&M transfers to Ole Miss he gets off the ball man like this guy at his size of a defensive tackle and I want to pull up the exact measurements so at the senior bowl six three and a quarter 293 the old median 33 and five eighth inch arms that's 67th percentile for a defensive tackle by the way it's a little better than the media but that is that is often like the cutoff for some teams right it's like right there right there 30 33 plus yeah um this guy flies off the ball good first step plus athleticism at his size they play him inside they play him on the edge i think the stop and start at the tackle you just don't see a lot like the ability really to take that quick step and then reposition

himself redirect himself or react it what it allows him to do trevor that not a lot of humans get to do at the position is you can see things wrong and you can correct yourself and actually recover and i think that is so hard to do in the trenches because when you're 290 plus pounds if you see something wrong and you step the wrong way it's so hard to have that reactive quickness to recover no one does it. Even when he guesses wrong or sees it wrong, he recovers and makes really big plays.

He can angle his body when he's at three tech. He has this ability to shoot gaps and kind of twist his body and swivel his hips into the pocket. He's got an arm over where when he likes, like some of these other guys that get the arm over working against the run game, he flies into the backfield where you could barely get the handoff off. 85th percentile true pass rush win grade in 2024 and only getting better,

like true trajectory guy for me. I actually thought, people talk about him and Stewart together a lot. I thought Nolan made significant productive jumps this year where stewart was it was marginal right it was like i see some of it with no one it's just undeniable on the tape uh i thought he got a lot better at taking on double teams in 2024 like with his build he's not built like tyreek williams and jordan phillips and kenneth, where it's like, ah, I could sink my 330 pound ass and hips and kind of just plant into the ground and try to move me.

He's got a strong, he's strong as hell up top though. Pound for pound strength, man. This guy's got it. He's absolutely got it. Yeah. And when running backs try to run away from wherever he's aligned,

he's got plus plus range as well. So I like Walter Nolan a lot. I think he's got plus plus range as well so i like walter nolan a lot i think he's got a he's got to get a little bit more refined technically to work well for skilled blockers like the blockers get under his pads and he's not strong enough always to just discard them and he's not refined enough to kind of use his hands to get out of it it's getting better it got a lot better this year it's not where it needs to be yet and I did think this year you look at the Georgia Arkansas Oklahoma and Kentucky games that four game stretch only had two pass uh two pressures he just ran cold as a pass rusher where he had a lot of other big moments so I no one is the actual ball of clay that has produced

enough where it's kind of an insult to call him that that i would bet on in this class trevor over stewart milton williams is the comp that i had for him absolutely love that and williams is obviously he figured it out cash the hell in but it wasn't always like that no and it wasn't always like that and it took him a little bit of time to develop but we saw the athletic gifts that Milton Williams had when he was coming out of Louisiana Tech. He absolutely blew up. I don't think it was a combine. I actually think it was his pro day.

Now that I'm thinking about it. But, I mean, he just had some insane spider chart numbers. It's one of those things where, like, the whole thing is green. Just the whole spider chart is loaded there and filled out. Walter Nolan can be the same type of player. You mentioned he's not the most polished dude in the world, and because of that, I've got a long list of strengths and weaknesses for him. I'll read them off really quick.

Well-built player, incredibly strong, especially with momentum. The raw strength and explosiveness are evident consistently. Has the build to play both defensive end and defensive tackle. I think he's best at three-technique defensive tackle, sort of right in the middle. Very strong tackler, low missed tackle rates when he gets his arms on you. Good effort throughout the whistle.

Okay, those are the strengths. Weaknesses. Looked less out of control in 2024, but still needs to be more purposeful in what he does. Lacks a go-to pass rush move. Needs more of a pass rush plan. Pass rushers can stall quickly because he doesn't think to get to those counters. He doesn't have the counters mastered, exposes chest a little bit

too easily, tries to disengage with just power instead of technique. And I think that you put it again perfectly. There are so few players at the NFL level that can win with just athleticism restraint. So very few. And even the ones who are the best, even the guys who you would say are the strongest, the most athletic, the reason why they probably come to your mind quickly is because they're productive players. And that means that they're often just not winning when it comes to their athleticism. So he needs to become a more polished football player. And that's why I see Milton Williams in him because he is, he is incredibly gifted as a three technique defensive tackle, much like Williams is, but it took Williams a little bit of time to get to the elite defensive lineman

that we saw this past year and difference maker that we saw in the Super Bowl. So I agree with you, man. We were both on the Walter Nolan, like way outside the early top fives in summer scouting. He had such a long way to go, but he's a younger player. He's a former number one or number two overall recruit. I can't remember exactly where he was in the country, and we're seeing him really start to bud into that.

Next guy I have at number two, you have at number three, is Kenneth Grant from Michigan. I went on a journey with Kenneth Grant. Yes, we all did. I watched two games of Kenneth Grant, and I was actually pretty disappointed. I saw a lot of things that I didn't think that I was going to see with him.

I saw a lot of inconsistency. And more importantly, I saw a lack of aggression and urgency from him. There were times when I would watch him and I'm like, get up the field. Like, what are we doing? Like, again, sort of going back to the conversation that we had.

I can't remember who this was at the beginning of the podcast dion walker okay dion walker is where we started to have this conversation where we're like okay you're a nose tackle and i love that you do the extra stuff but i still need you to be a nose tackle and there are a couple of times where i was like dude like i need you to be more aggressive here. But then there are other plays where he just puts it all together as a 6'3", 340-pound dude with extremely nimble footwork, very fast hands, the ability to just snap his fingers and like Thanos, just hold the line of scrimmage against the Hulk or whoever they have throwing at them.

Like, there are plays that Kenneth Grant has that truly lives up to Jim Harbaugh calling both him and Mason Graham, quote, gifts from the football gods, like he called them a couple of years ago when he was still the head coach at Michigan. There are times when I see that from Kenneth Grant, and I want to make it very clear. It's not like I see those very hot and cold from him. It's almost like he's so dominant in some reps i go just be that dominant all the time and i feel like it's almost a mentality as the reason why he's not not anything that goes into lack of ability or anything like that but really good

passers 82.5 passers great on true pass set 68th percentile passers win percentage and again the only reason why i think those numbers are lower than they should be is because sometimes he just doesn't attack with the aggression that I want him to there are times when he's rushing the passer where he's kind of like dancing around he's doing his finesse thing and I'm like get up the field like you are good enough to do this and go after the ball and just go hunt and I want him to pin his ears back a little bit more because when he does it, I think that he's fantastic. Really good run defender, really good run defense grades. That inconsistency from, he plays with higher leverage.

He gives up leverage and he gives up his pad level way easier than he needs to. Again, because I think that he pops out of his stance. And again, he wants to do the finesse thing. And it's like, man, I want you to be power first and then we'll see some of that finesse and so the inconsistencies there are sort of why I went on a journey with him because initially I was like ah man like I think I'm gonna be way lower on this player than I thought I was gonna be and then I watch more games and it's like okay I just see so much difference making NFL ability here

that I couldn't come away with a surefire first round grade for him. But I did end up with that late first, early second round grade because what he does and the potential that he has, the things that we have already seen, he just does at such a high level at a size that you really love. So that's where i'm at with ken the grant yeah i saw him the same way i mean i you want him to be dexter lawrence when you see the 342 pound he's just he's just not dexter no no he's not nobody is i think i honestly can make a case he's the best defensive player in the nfl but but you're right like that's the thing you look at him and you're like man you should just be dominating all the time. And ironically, Trevor, I thought his best game this

year was against Ohio state, which, you know, the way that program cranks things up for Ohio state, no matter if they're a four win team or no matter if they're undefeated. And it's like, I saw you do it in the biggest game of the year. Why don't you always do it? But the size, I mean, another guy's knocked down eight passes over the last two seasons. He can hold the point of attack. He's got that sneaky swim move. He's got foot quickness. Yeah. I'm, I'm with you like Kenneth Grant. They just, the whole, like with Dion Walker, they don't make a lot of guys like this. No, they don't make a lot of guys like this. No, they don't make a lot of Kenneth Grants,

and that's why he's going to be a first-round pick. You know who he reminds me of? You know what comp I have for Kenneth Grant? Well, it's got to be a small list because there's not a lot of guys his size. I'm not going to torch you with the guess. Okay. BJ Raji. You know, it's funny. I'm not gonna torch you with the guest okay bj rajji i you know it's funny i'm on mock draftable in the weight range and he's right in front of me right now because he was

337 and and rajji was kind of this you know big giant nose tackle who gave you a little extra juice in pass rush but you always wanted him to be more stout than he was on a down by down basis and he was a big difference maker he was yeah super bowl teams right i mean like he was a big difference maker in some of the some huge plays for them when green bay needed it most but like that i felt good about that comp for kenneth grant bj raj there um and then the last guy mr meat fabric himself yep and fabric it's it's it's mason graham um we have loved mason Mason Graham for a long time here on this podcast, and this is no different. This is my number one ranked three technique defensive tackle. He is the amongst all of the defensive linemen in this class, who I think that there are a lot

that are going to make up NFL rosters. He's the only one who earned that surefire first round grade from me. Six foot three, 318 pounds. He is a sawed off player. He's got shorter arm length than you want. And I think that sort of goes into the deficiencies that you might see from him. But good Lord, there aren't many. Elite pass rush grade against true pass sets, 90.9.

97% pass rush win percentage at almost 15%. 93.0 run defense grade. And these are all over the last two years, by the way. So it is large sample size stuff. And you talk about making plays in the pass rush game and the run defense game, 12% solo run stop percentage. That's 98th percentile. This dude consistently gave his team so much value from the defensive tackle spot. And really the only critique I have from him, because his hands are fast and violent. He's got great pass rush moves.

He can deconstruct blocks so well. He can hold up well against double teams and he can absolutely dominate single blocking situations. He has what I think is pretty rare bend and the ability to turn the corner that's probably the better way to say it maybe not ben but like his ability to turn the corner he's flexible so sharply around the shoulder of offensive tackles i mean he saves so much time getting around and to the lap of the quarterback because of how tight of a corner that he can turn. It is a special gift that he has there.

Really, the only thing that holds him back is that length. And sometimes the length shows up when the pass rush moves might not be as efficient. He might not get off them as cleanly. And he can't protect the chest as well as some of these other guys can when they have longer arms. Because it's just more difficult for, I should say, it's easier for offensive tackles to get up into the midsection of him and latch on. And so that's sort of difficult for him too. But if you can overlook him having shorter arms, this dude's got all probability. And he has showcased it for the last two years at Michigan.

And he's going to continue to do so at the nfl level the the meme of the guy and the girl in bed and they're both looking other directions and the girls like bubble says he's probably thinking about other girls and the guy is a giraffe fan it's like if mason graham and will campbell had longer arms they'd be the number one overall pick. God! You're so right. My two favorite players in this class, if they just had a little bit longer arms, we would without question probably be talking about them as,

well, I think we're already talking about Mason Graham like this, but they'd both be in every single top five. Every single top five, no matter what. It would have to be written in ink. Mason Graham, the grip strength. Go back to the Ohio State game. He erased their run game, erased it. You talked about the solo run stop percentage. He is that kind of disruptor where you look at it.

I talked earlier about how Ty Leak, you have to play differently against him when you want to run the ball mason graham does that at a lighter weight but is 50 times a better pass rusher where he never has to come off the field ever so he's so good it's and he's got an array of moves already like you we've talked about the two handed swipe. He could spin off blocks. That grip strength allows him to push, pull. You talk about the body angling. That's special stuff.

Twitchy. The hands are always going. Uh, and I, I love the pound for pound strength as well with this guy to take on double teams, to kind of drive into the ground and hold the wrestling background, elite high school wrestler.

Like this, this guy, he has it all and he plays you know 100 miles an hour on every single given game day so mason graham is one of the best players in the draft he was i believe our number one player for both of us coming out of summer overall i think so so it's no surprise to see him hold in a loaded field hold his number one defensive line spot for both of us uh really quick before we recap the top 15s here the player that he reminds me of tommy harris when he was at his best at oklahoma and and chicago underrated player tommy harris i mean he i mean he at his best man that dude was uh an animal i mean he was incredible when he was on the field

as that sort of same build type of a player, unanimous All-American when he was at Oklahoma, first-round pick when he was coming out of Oklahoma into Chicago. And so when he was on the field, I mean, he reminded me of the impact that Tommy Harris could have. All right, 15 through 1. Recapping this here from me, I got got Dion Walker from Kentucky at 15 Elijah Roberts from SMU at 14 Jordan Phillips from

Maryland at 13 Omar Norman Lotz from Tennessee at 12 Alfred Collins from Texas at 11 Josh Farmer at 10 from Florida State Jared Ivey from Ole Miss at 9 Shamar Turner from Texas A&M number 8 Tylee Williams from Ohio State at 7 TJ Sanders

Bullrush McIntyre from South Carolina at number six, Darius Alexander from Toledo at number five, Derek Harmon from Oregon at number four, Walter Nolan from Ole Miss at number three, Kenneth Grant from Michigan at number two, and Mason Graham from Michigan at number one. Connor, who'd you have 15 through one?

15, Dion Walker, just like you from Kentucky, Joshua Farmer from Florida State at 14 13 Jordan Phillips from Maryland 12 Omar Norman Lott from Tennessee 11 Jamari Caldwell one of two Oregon defensive linemen on this list 10 Darius Alexander defensive lineman out of Toledo of course number nine Shamar Turner from Texas A&M 8 eight Alfred Collins from Texas, seven TJ Sanders from South Carolina, six Derek Harmon, the other Oregon defensive lineman on this list.

Shamar Stewart at number five from Texas A&M. Number four was Tyleek Williams from Ohio State. Number three was Kenneth Grant from Michigan. Number two was Walter Nolan from Ole Miss. Number one, just like you and just like Summer, Mason Graham. We would love to hear from you. As always, we ranked our top 15 interior defensive lineman here. We'd love to hear your thoughts as well.

We'd love to hear kind of what you guys thoughts of us, you know, breaking down these guys in a little bit of different positions. These nose tackles, three technique, defensive tackles, three, four defense events. You have more questions about that and kind of what goes into it and how I changed my grading scale of certain categories on those three um fire off the question I'll I'll be happy to answer those and kind of go into detail of how we do that I think you guys love when we answer sort of the why of how we

are scouting and we get to these points so if anybody has any questions about that fire away but we'd love to hear from your list as well we also watch a handful of other players who didn't quite make the top 15 we're going to continue to watch defensive tackles if you if we didn't get to somebody here on this list, ask a question, fire it off in the comments, let us know, or give us your thoughts on that player. We would love to hear that as well. Audio only, people.

Hit us up on Twitter and Instagram at TamaBetray, at ConnorJRogers, but the best way to get in on the show is the comment section on YouTube, youtube.com backslash at NFL Stock Exchange. You can also follow us on Instagram. It's NFL, as he show and tick tock, same thing, NFL, as he show. And that's the same on Twitter as well.

Connor got anything else before we get out of here? I think I've said all of my words for one, two hour defensive lineman show. It was a lot of fun, but man, what a class this is. We knew that this was going to be a beast. Uh, there's so many fun difference,, different shapes and sizes, styles, types of defensive linemen that I think are going to make up a good part of the core in the NFL over the next couple of years. And so it's fun to talk about a lot of these guys. We got one more episode for you a little bit later in the week. We are going to be reviewing another mock draft.

I'll leave the suspense there as to whose mock draft we're going to be reviewing. No spoilers. No, no spoilers this episode. So there you go, guys. Didn't have spoilers for you. For Connor Rogers, I'm Trevor Sigmund. Thank you.