Packer Central

Scouting Combine Winners: Teams Like Packers Who Need Defensive Line Help

The defensive line group mostly lived up to the hype during their Scouting Combine workouts on Thursday.
Bill Huber|
Texas A&M defensive lineman Shemar Stewart at the Scouting Combine.
Texas A&M defensive lineman Shemar Stewart at the Scouting Combine. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Do the Green Bay Packers need to add more explosion at defensive end? More power at defensive tackle?

Yes.

The 2025 NFL Draft class of defensive linemen lived up to the hype at the Scouting Combine on Thursday in Indianapolis.

While many of the top prospects opted to skip the testing, several who did and have been linked to the Packers had outstanding days.

At defensive end/edge, Texas A&M’s Shemar Stewart posted a perfect 10.0 Relative Athletic Score. Arkansas’ Landon Jackson was next at 9.88. Both players have the size and athleticism the Packers covet at the position. Stewart is a sure-fire first-round pick – probably out of Green Bay’s range at No. 23 now – and Jackson could move into the first-round conversation.

At defensive tackle, Nebraska’s Ty Robinson (9.87), Toledo’s Darius Alexander (9.20) and Indiana’s C.J. West (9.15) had good days. Alexander is considered a potential first-round pick with West and Robinson are mid-round prospects.

What is RAS? RAS takes a player’s testing numbers – height, weight, 40-yard dash and so on – and puts them on a 0-to-10 scale compared to other players at the same position, with 0.0 being the slowest (or shortest or lightest) and 10.0 being the fastest (or tallest or heaviest). All of those numbers are combined for a final 0-to-10 score.

Stewart was sensational, which will only add to the conundrum of picking a player who had 1.5 sacks in each of his three seasons at Texas A&M.

At 6-foot-5 and 267 pounds, he ran his 40 in 4.59 seconds with elite numbers in the vertical jump (40 inches) and broad jump (10 feet, 11 inches). He tweaked a hamstring running his 40, so didn’t go through positional drills.

“Growing up in South Florida, gets the fastest competition you can find. I feel like it really prepped my body to become a fast player,” Stewart said.

Stewart says he models his game after Hall of Famer Julius Peppers.

“I feel like my body and our athletic ability are pretty similar,” he said. “I’m not going to say I'm up there with him, because he's definitely a Hall of Famer. But it's pretty similar in my eyes.”

Jackson was much more productive in college with 13 sacks and 24 tackles for losses the past two seasons. At 6-foot-6 and 264 pounds, Jackson ran his 40 in 4.68 seconds and elite jumps, as well (vertical of 40.5 inches and broad jump of 10 feet, 9 inches).

Another first-round edge prospect, Tennessee’s James Pearce, ran his 40 in a stunning 4.47 seconds. Pearce led the SEC with 10 sacks in 2023 and added 7.5 in 2024.

While they didn’t go through enough drills to get a RAS, two potential first-round defensive tackles, Oregon’s Derrick Harmon and Ohio State’s Tyleik Williams, impressed.

Harmon (6-foot-4 1/2, 313 pounds) ran his 40 in 4.95 seconds. Williams (6-foot-2 7/8, 334 pounds) didn’t go through any testing but was sharp in drills.

“I’ve got a dog in me. Real gritty player, just trying to get to the ball and make a play,” Harmon said.

Alexander, who had eight sacks and 21 tackles for losses during his final three seasons at Toledo, perhaps solidified his spot with Harmon and Williams in the first round. At 6-foot-3 7/8 and 305 pounds, he ran his 40 in 4.95 seconds with solid numbers in the jumps.

“I think my best attribute is my whole game,” he said. “I think there's areas I can work on all my game, but my best attribute is to go out there and play physical.”

Said former ESPN NFL Draft expert Todd McShay said in his newsletter: “Of the players in my top 100, Toledo’s Darius Alexander had the best all-around workout. He’s listed at 6037 and 305 pounds with 34-inch arms, 10-inch hands, and a 4.95 40. He showed really good dip and flexibility in his workouts and turned corners well in the bag drills.” 

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, who needs to improve the pass rush and potentially replace starting defensive tackle TJ Slaton, raved about the depth of the group.

“The numbers are high,” he said. “I think that it’s an interesting year overall. I think the COVID and the NIL and everything has kind of caught up to where the numbers, particularly in that third day of the draft, are as high as I’ve seen them. I just think there’s a lot of guys that came back for their fifth and sixth years – a lot of 24-, 25-year-old players in this draft.

“Obviously, over the past three or four years, the guys who are going to go in the top of the first round, those guys came out. Those guys don’t ever really stay in. But a lot of the other guys had options because of the NIL and the extra years they had, so I think that’s catching up so the numbers are really, really high, especially in that third day.”

Three defensive tackles had disappointing days, especially Maryland’s Jordan Phillips (6.00 RAS; didn’t run a 40), Mississippi’s J.J. Pegues (4.42 RAS; 5.15 40) and Kentucky’s Deone Walker (no RAS but a 25-inch vertical). Florida State’s J.J. Farmer (6.98 RAS) was a bit of a disappointment, as well.

Still, it’s a powerful group that’s oozing with talent.

“With players with the potential to start at defensive tackle, last year I had 12, and this year I had double,” NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah said in a pre-Combine Zoom. “So, it is as deep of a defensive tackle draft as I can ever remember.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.