Ex-Buckeye Safety Caleb Downs Lands With Iconic NFL Franchise To Start Career

Caleb Downs is headed to the NFC East to begin his NFL career.

Ohio State Buckeyes safety Caleb Downs (2) celebrates an interception with cornerback Jermaine Mathews Jr. (7) abnd linebacker Sonny Styles (0) during the first half of the NCAA football game against the Grambling State Tigers at Ohio Stadium on Sept. 6, 2025. | Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Ohio State Buckeyes saw another star defender come off the NFL draft board Thursday night in Pittsburgh, as the Dallas Cowboys landed star safety Caleb Downs with the 11th-overall pick via a trade with the Miami Dolphins. With the selection, Downs will land in the Lone Star State and in one of the NFL's biggest markets despite recently underachieving over the last few seasons.

Downs has experienced the mountaintop before, as his former coach Ryan Day won a national title with the Buckeyes to close out the 2024-25 season against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Fifteen months later, Downs has a chance to do the same, but it will be under the direction of the Cowboys, who are still seeking their first Super Bowl title since the 1995-1996 season.

Downs said he's ready for whatever moments come his way, having played in the SEC and Big Ten. But he mostly gives credit to how Ohio State molded him into the player he is today.

"The people you’re around, they get the best out of you,” Downs told Eleven Warriors. "Whether it is the training staff, nutrition staff, support staff. [They are] always pouring into you to make you a better person.”

With his Buckeyes' career behind him, Downs said his goals for the NFL don't mean anything unless he is doing his best to show that Ohio State was the right foundational spot for him.

"Ohio State has an excellent tradition and a winning tradition, so I feel like that’s a special thing to be a part of,” Downs said.

Downs said he is more than aware of how many people look up to him, which was no more evident than during his recent visit as part of his collaboration with the NFL's Salute to Service program and USAA, where he honored his grandfather.

Downs clarified that he is 100 percent healthy after there were rumblings of a knee injury, potentially impacting the early stages of his NFL career, which he denied last month.

"Pat McAfee put out a statement about it," Downs told reporters. "That’s not what my medical says, so it is what it is. I don’t really know who gave him that information, whoever that dude is. But it is what it is. I’m just gonna continue to do me. I can’t control what people say."

Now, he has a chance to write his own story and do so without any hint of controversy surrounding him.