Edge rushers have been climbing up NFL draft boards in recent years, but 2024 was a bit of a surprise. No edge rushers -- better yet, no defensive players at all -- were selected until Laiatu Latu at No. 15 overall. But edge rushers bounced back late, with four of the top 21 picks being used on the position. For the 2025 draft, Abdul Carter (Penn State) is expected to be chosen in the top five, while other edge rushers such as Shemar Stewart (Texas A&M) and Mike Green (Marshall) might go in the top 20.
Projecting edge rushers from college to the pros is extremely difficult, and there's a wide range of possibilities here. So while it might be surprising that no prospect is projected with more than six sacks per season, be aware that some of them will end up as double-digit sack artists ... and others will struggle and disappear from games for long stretches.
Note that we did not include Georgia's Jalon Walker in our projections below. Walker is a hybrid player who lined up at inside linebacker and edge rusher in college, with just 6.5 sacks last season. In addition, he didn't perform any drills at the combine or pro day, so those parts of SackSEER -- which was developed by Nathan Forster -- would have been estimated for him. The whole package gives us an artificially low projection for a player who is widely considered to be a top-10 pick.
What follows are some of the notable projections for edge rusher prospects in the 2025 draft.
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Sleeper pick
Full SackSEER rankings
Methodology: How it works
