2021 Defensive Tackle Prospects

This is a generally weak defensive class at the top of the draft, and nowhere is that clearer than at the defensive tackle position. There are no elite players to be found here, and not many particularly good ones either. One of the few intriguing players I looked at actually decided to return to school without me realizing it until I started writing things up, which is why there are only five players broken down in this preview (typically I try to have at least six per position group). In this case, it’s no real loss.

Christian Barmore, DT, Alabama

Barmore is the best defensive tackle prospect in the class, and even then I’d hesitate to select him in the first round. On pure athletic potential he might be able to sneak into the final few picks, but he isn’t even that impressive an athlete. He has good size and length but otherwise tested fairly average in all the speed and agility drills, which raises some concerns for a player whose entire game is built around his quickness in tight spaces.

The best attribute Barmore has going for himself is his slipperiness. He’s very good at avoiding getting locked onto opposing blockers, and if he can find a lane he usually is able to get skinny and slide through it. He doesn’t have a lot of flashy moves with his hands, but he’s good at little swipes and punches to prevent blockers from grabbing onto him. Off the snap, he can sometimes win by quickly darting sideways across a lineman’s face and then shooting through the resulting hole.

In college Barmore was primarily used as a pass rush specialist, and while pass rush is certainly important, from a defensive tackle I would like to see a well-rounded player. He doesn’t get blown off the ball in the running game, but he doesn’t win much either, mostly just holding his ground and fighting to a standstill. My bigger concern will be whether he can handle the increased reps of an NFL starter, fighting for forty to fifty plays a game rather than the twenty or so he typically played at Alabama.

If you’re drafting Barmore, you’re doing it to get a good athlete you think can be molded into a dangerous pass rusher on the interior. I think he’ll be effective in small spurts, but I don’t see him becoming a real difference maker. His athletic ability is merely okay, he lacks the flexibility to bend through contact and finish at the quarterback, and at times he can be undisciplined in his rushing lanes, leaving an easy gap for a quarterback to step up into. He’ll be able to get four or five sacks a year in a starting role, but I don’t see him becoming more than an average starter.

Levi Onwuzurike, DT, Washington

Onwuzurike’s first step is special, and this year that on its own is enough to make him the second best defensive tackle in the class. He explodes off the ball and makes contact with a powerful punch, establishing the battleground a yard or two past the line of scrimmage. He gets good position with his hands, he wins leverage, and then he doesn’t really do anything. But it’s a foundation to build upon, and that’s more than I can say about most of the other players on this list.

If I described Barmore as “slippery” for his ability to avoid being caught up on blockers, then Onwuzurike plays like he has superglue coating his uniform. At times he can use his leverage to twist into a gap and look like he’s about to burst through into the backfield, only to be held back by a single hand on his chest. He seems to understand that he has to do more, and he tries with rips and yanks and spins that don’t really go anywhere. But the awareness is there, and with proper training he may be able to develop these into real moves.

Onwuzurike is worth a second round pick as a project. He would have benefited from another year of development, but he opted out of the season so the most recent tape we have is from 2019. It’s a little concerning that he’s already 23, and should have picked up more of these skills during his first four years at Washington. But right now this potential is probably the best a team searching for a defensive tackle can hope for after Barmore is off the board.

Daviyon Nixon, DT, Iowa

Nixon is a bit all over the place as a player. At times he flashes true dominance, when he shoots upfield off the snap and destroys plays deep in the backfield. This happens often enough that I can’t just dismiss it as a fluke, but not so often that I feel comfortable saying he’s going to be an above average player in the NFL. Outside of these flashes, he doesn’t look like much of an athlete, and he tested just average at his Pro Day.

If he can continue to create these moments in the NFL, that’s worth putting him into a starting role. If they go away, however, he doesn’t have a lot to fall back on. He struggles to separate from blocks as the play wears on, making very little use of his hands and not getting much in the way of push to disrupt the pocket of the quarterback or the lanes of a running back. He doesn’t get blown backwards very often, but when the ball does come near him he struggles to break away from contact and actually make a tackle. He can control space in a very tight window, but he doesn’t have the range to play outside of this box his initial burst takes him into.

So what do we do with a player like this? Beside a pure nose tackle who can eat up multiple blockers, his ability to generate explosive plays might be worth the downside. I wouldn’t count on him being the fulcrum of a defense however, not as a run defender or as a pass rusher. His ability probably does justify a second or third round pick in a weak class, but he’s not a player I would be pounding the table to select.

Jaylen Twyman, DT, Pittsburgh

Twyman is a fascinating prospect on paper. He’s another defensive tackle who makes his name primarily as a pass rusher, with an impressive 10.5 sacks in his sophomore year in 2019 before opting out in 2020 (none of the other defensive tackles I watched even matched that total in their entire college careers). He combines that with a smaller frame that is atypical for a defensive tackle, and athletic results that are downright puzzling. He was brutally bad in both the forty yard dash and the three-cone drill, but he showed good explosiveness in the vertical jump, and put up an insane 40 reps at 225 pounds on the benchpress.

So put that all together, and what do you get? After three games of watching him, I’m still not sure. He fires off the ball well, and he engages with strength and leverage on the offensive side of the line of scrimmage. Sometimes he can be slippery to get through with a swim move, but for the most part he doesn’t really have much in the way of moves to get past the blocker in front of him. Instead he just grinds, relentlessly pushing and twisting until he finds his way past the blocker. Sometimes the ball is there when he gets through, other times it’s already well past him down the field.

A large part of Twyman’s production as a pass rusher was just cleaning things up on a team with two NFL level edge rushers, but that’s a role he can succeed at in the NFL as well. I don’t think he’s an elite pass rusher, and he isn’t going to be an anchor in the middle of a run defense. But he’s a scrappy player who can overcome his athletic limitations, and if he’s put in a defensive line with other talent around him, he can be a headache to account for on the interior. He probably isn’t worth picking before the late third round, but if he slides into the fourth or fifth he could be a good snag for a team looking for a pass rusher with a history of production.

Jay Tufele, DT, USC

There’s been some talk recently in the NFL that defenses are shifting back to thinking about defensive tackles as primarily a run-first position, after years of prioritizing them as pass rushers. The idea of this is that effective interior run defenders can allow teams to soften the box and put more players on the back end in coverage, which is more effective against modern quick-hitting passing attacks than pass rush. I’m not totally opposed to this idea, but if I’m going to build my team with this in mind, I’m not going to make a player like Tufele the central part of this design.

Tufele is built like a pass rusher and plays like a run stuffer, which isn’t a combination I have much interest in. He isn’t particularly explosive off the snap, and he’s not going to make plays deep in the backfield. He’s going to come off the ball, engage with a blocker, and try to control the gaps on either side of him. He’s decent enough at shedding and making a play when the ball comes his way, but he has no range outside of what he can reach with his arms.

This sort of two-gapping approach can be effective, but I’d prefer a larger and tougher player than the 305 pound Tufele. He holds his ground on most plays, but periodically he does lose leverage and get shoved backwards, particularly in short yardage plays. I could live with this if he offered something as a pass rusher, but there isn’t much there that I can see. He has a nice swim move that can get him past an opposing lineman, but he doesn’t have the burst or the bend to make a play on the quarterback once he’s in the backfield. I just don’t see much here to convince me he can be an NFL starter, and I wouldn’t take him before the fifth round.