2026 NFL Draft Prospects: Defensive Linemen (DT + NT)
Identifying the most consistent college defensive linemen with "above-the-line" scouting grades in the 2026 NFL Draft class.
The Top 300 Players in the 2026 NFL Draft
Caleb Downs, Jeremiyah Love, and Sonny Styles headline a deep 2026 NFL Draft class.
Brad Beatson
Defensive Linemen Archetypes
- 🧱 Brick Shithouse
- Point of Attack Bounce Rate ≥40% Eliminates running lanes
- Run Defense Snaps ≥200 On the field early and often
- Run Stop Rate ≥5% Consistently made the play when it came their way
- 🏎️ Wild Hog
- Quick Pressure Rate ≥3% Fast track to the quarterback
- 🏁 Finisher
- Total Pressures ≥15 Offenses need to account for their pass-rushing chops
- Total Sacks ≥1.0 Finishes the play
Injury Concerns
- ⛑️ Availability — Injury history collected from SIS and The Athletic
- 🧰 Production Component
- Source: PFF Weekly Grades — Stresses the importance of game-to-game, play-to-play consistency while adjusting for variance. Accounts for every game played during the prospect's final two seasons in college.
- Apply Critical Minimum — Weekly grades below 60.0 cannot be smoothed over by two-year average. Instead, once the acceptable threshold for "below-the-line" grades has been crossed, the prospect's production grade is capped and trends toward more of a boom-bust profile.
- 🔬 Film Component
- Source: SIS Scouting Reports — Watch a minimum of 3-5 games per prospect and assign a grade, from 1 (reject) to 9 (rare), to each of their three critical traits and half-dozen or so positional factors. Assign a final grade that projects how the prospect will stack up at their position by the beginning of their second season in the NFL.
- Apply Critical Minimum — Mediocre traits cannot be smoothed over by average. Instead, once the acceptable threshold for "below-the-line" grades has been crossed, the prospect's scouting grade is capped and trends toward more of a boom-bust profile.
- ⚖️ Weighting the Two: 80% Prospect Score
- Position Specific — Some positions have stronger signal in production than film or vice versa and so they are individually weighted to reflect that.
- 60/20 Production — Defensive Tackle is one of the more fully fleshed out positions from a statistical, production standpoint while film tends to be more subjective ("pick your flavor.")
- 50/30 Film — Nose Tackles don't impact the box score as much. Film tends to have a more meaningful signal.
Prospect Chips
- 🔵 Blue Chip Potential 75+ production & 75+ film
- 🟢 Solid Contributor — 75+ in prod. or film & 68+ in the other
- ⚪ Situation Dependent — Everyone else
- 🏅 Athleticism
- Source: Next Gen Stats — Assigns a 1-10 grade on athletic profile for every player at the Combine. In some cases, NGS estimates the scores if the prospect didn't test in Indianapolis or at their college pro day.
- RAS, MockDraftable, Football Sheets — I've added these sources to my database for future use. Many prospects had incomplete scores due to lack of testing numbers, so it made more sense to use NGS in this iteration of the model because every prospect ended up with a data point.
- 📊 Positional Value
- Source: Spotrac — Analyzing the rookie contract scale and how much guaranteed money each pick receives against the Top 100 cap hits in the NFL by position over the next three seasons. Takes into account the Top 10 highest paid players at their position and the relative cost savings a rookie contract could provide.
- Additive Bonus — Each player was scored on a 1-10 scale using the consensus big board as a guide for projected savings. Fernando Mendoza was the only player to receive a 10 because starting QBs make anywhere from $30-50 million per season. Other positions, like RB, TE, LB, and S were capped at a maximum 5 points.
- DT Positional Value
- 1st Rd: Top 15 pick — 7
- 1st Rd: Pro Bowl upside — 6
- 1st Rd: Reliable starter — 5
- 1st Rd: Situation dependent — 4
- 2nd Rounder — 4
- 3rd Rounder — 2
- Projected Day 3 Pick — 1
- NT Positional Value
- 1st Rd: Top 15 pick — 6
- 1st Rd: Pro Bowl upside — 5
- 1st Rd: Reliable starter — 4
- 1st Rd: Situation dependent — 3
- 2nd Rounder — 2
- 3rd Rounder — 2
- Projected Day 3 Pick — 1
- 🌹🥀 Intangibles
- Source: Dane Brugler — The Beast prospect guide includes strengths and weaknesses for every player on the big board. Includes off-the-field concerns, quotes from scouts and coaches, and non-negotiable traits for the position.
- My Judgment — Each player was evaluated based on the additional information, including: injury history, work ethic, football iq, off-field concerns, and non-negotiables for their position. For quarterbacks, my non-negotiable is a willingness to take the hit in order to make a play.
Badges
- 💰 Positional Value — Prospect earned a 5.0 or higher based on the potential value of their rookie contract.
- 💎 Strong Character — Prospect assigned a 5.0 or higher in their intangible score.
- ⚠️ Investigate Further — Prospect assigned a -5.0 or worse in their intangible score.
Player Athleticism POS Value Intangibles Badges Lee Hunter 8.2 4.0 2.0 Zane Durant 9.2 1.0 3.0 Kayden McDonald 7.3 5.0 -2.0 💰 Chris McClellan 7.2 2.0 2.0 Gracen Halton 7.4 2.0 2.0 Tim Keenan III 5.8 1.0 3.0 Darrell Jackson Jr. 6.9 2.0 1.0 Nick Barrett 6.8 1.0 2.0 Peter Woods 8.1 5.0 -1.0 💰 Bobby Jamison-Travis 6.6 0.0 2.0 Rayshaun Benny 6.3 1.0 -2.0 Albert Regis 6.7 1.0 5.0 💎 Skyler Gill-Howard 6.8 0.0 3.0 LT Overton 5.4 3.0 2.0 Brandon Cleveland 5.8 1.0 0.0 Christen Miller 7.2 4.0 -1.0 Caleb Banks 8.0 4.0 -4.0 Domonique Orange 7.6 3.0 -5.0 ⚠️ Cameron Ball 5.7 1.0 1.0 Jackie Marshall 7.6 0.0 0.0 Kaleb Proctor Inc. Inc. Inc. Gary Smith III 5.2 0.0 -2.0 Bryson Eason 5.9 1.0 -2.0 Tyler Onyedim 5.0 1.0 2.0 DeMonte Capehart 8.7 1.0 -7.0 ⚠️ Zxavian Harris 6.7 1.0 -15.0 ⚠️ David Gusta Inc. Inc. Inc. Dontay Corleone 7.8 1.0 -1.0 Deven Eastern 6.1 1.0 -2.0 Damonic Williams Inc. Inc. Inc.
Head back to the Big Board:
The Top 300 Players in the 2026 NFL DraftCaleb Downs, Jeremiyah Love, and Sonny Styles headline a deep 2026 NFL Draft class.Brad Beatson
Zane Durant sacks SMU's Kevin Jennings (L) and fellow '26 prospect Luke Altmyer (R).
Top Quarterback Prospects
POS RK Player Grade Achetype Badges NT1 Lee Hunter 77 1T / NT 🏁 DT1 Zane Durant 72 3T 🏁 NT2 Kayden McDonald 71 1T / NT 🧱 DT3 Chris McClellan 71 3T 🏎️ · 🏁 DT4 Gracen Halton 71 3T 🏎️ · 🏁 NT3 Tim Keenan III 69 1T / NT ⛑️ NT4 Darrell Jackson Jr. 68 1T / NT 🧱 NT5 Nick Barrett 68 1T / NT 🧱 DT5 Peter Woods 67 3T NT6 Bobby Jamison-Travis 66 1T / NT DT6 Rayshaun Benny 65 3T ⛑️ NT7 Albert Regis 65 1T / NT 🧱 DT7 Skyler Gill-Howard 65 3T 🏎️ DE1 LT Overton 65 Hybrid 🏁 NT8 Brandon Cleveland 65 1T / NT DT8 Christen Miller 64 3T ⛑️ DT9 Caleb Banks 64 3T ⛑️ NT9 Domonique Orange 61 1T / NT NT10 Cameron Ball 59 1T / NT DE2 Jackie Marshall 58 Hybrid ⛑️ DT10 Kaleb Proctor 58 3T 🏁 NT11 Gary Smith III 56 1T / NT ⛑️ NT12 Bryson Eason 56 1T / NT 🏎️ DT11 Tyler Onyedim 54 3T 🏁 NT13 DeMonte Capehart 53 1T / NT ⛑️ DT12 Zxavian Harris 51 3T 🏁 DT13 David Gusta 49 D-Line NT14 Dontay Corleone 46 1T / NT ⛑️ NT15 Deven Eastern 44 1T / NT 🧱 DT14 Damonic Williams 29 D-Line
Defensive tackle archetypes are tied to 2025 usage rates, with a hybrid role meaning they sometimes played defensive end.
Some of these linemen will end up playing a meaningfully different role in the league, which could impact how quickly they earn consistent snaps on defense
Raw Prospect Scores
Player Production Film Chip Lee Hunter 76.1 74.6 🟢 Zane Durant 72.6 65.5 ⚪ Kayden McDonald 75.3 73.5 🟢 Chris McClellan 75.3 66.0 ⚪ Gracen Halton 76.7 58.5 ⚪ Tim Keenan III 75.9 58.7 ⚪ Darrell Jackson Jr. 74.4 58.5 ⚪ Nick Barrett 74.2 58.7 ⚪ Peter Woods 75.7 39.3 ⚪ Bobby Jamison-Travis 74.6 54.9 ⚪ Rayshaun Benny 76.1 63.1 ⚪ Albert Regis 74.7 30.2 ⚪ Skyler Gill-Howard 78.8 32.0 ⚪ LT Overton 74.5 30.4 ⚪ Brandon Cleveland 74.4 61.4 ⚪ Christen Miller 77.2 39.9 ⚪ Caleb Banks 73.7 69.4 ⚪ Domonique Orange 74.4 61.5 ⚪ Cameron Ball 73.8 27.9 ⚪ Jackie Marshall 71.6 29.2 ⚪ Kaleb Proctor Inc. Inc. ⚪ Gary Smith III 75.5 32.6 ⚪ Bryson Eason 73.1 27.9 ⚪ Tyler Onyedim 72.7 36.1 ⚪ DeMonte Capehart 73.5 30.6 ⚪ Zxavian Harris 73.7 62.6 ⚪ David Gusta Inc. Inc. ⚪ Dontay Corleone 74.7 27.7 ⚪ Deven Eastern 73.4 30.2 ⚪ Damonic Williams Inc. Inc. ⚪
🦺Players with incomplete scores had missing data points and will be revisited after the draft. Bandit Football regrets the error.
Athleticism, Positional Value, Intagibles
